Azerbaijani security forces on 30 June raided the Baku bureau of Sputnik Azerbaijan and detained seven employees, among them executive director Igor Kartavykh and editor-in-chief Yevgeny Belousov. A district court the following day ordered the pair and five colleagues held for four months while they face accusations of fraud, illegal business activity and money-laundering. Authorities said the outlet had continued to operate with unreported funding despite an earlier warning that its accreditation had lapsed. The arrests have broadened into a wider sweep of Russian citizens in Azerbaijan, with local media reporting eight additional Russians placed in custody on separate allegations of drug trafficking and cyber-crime. Azerbaijan has denied consular access for the time being, citing the ongoing investigations. Moscow condemned the operation as an “unfriendly act”. Media group Rossiya Segodnya, which owns Sputnik, demanded the immediate release of its staff, while Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Azerbaijani ambassador and delivered a formal note of protest. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that relations were being deliberately damaged and urged Baku to restore “strategic cooperation”. The dispute follows the 27 June deaths of two Azerbaijani brothers during a Russian police raid in Yekaterinburg—an incident Baku calls an act of torture. Azerbaijan has since cancelled Russian cultural events and opened its own criminal case into the killings, signalling a rapid deterioration in a relationship already strained by the December 2024 downing of an Azerbaijani airliner over Russian airspace. Diplomatic channels remain open, but both governments now acknowledge that ties are at their lowest point in years.