Head of Moscow's Azerbaijani diaspora deported from Russia

Bakhtiyar Hasanov, head of Moscow's Azerbaijani diaspora, was deported from Russia, according to the Azerbaijani news agency APA. He was taken to the airport from the Center for Temporary Detention of Foreign Citizens (TsVSIG), where he had been held since June.

In September 2024, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels reported that Hasanov had been stripped of his Russian citizenship. Agentstvo found that his passport, issued in 2019, was listed as invalid on the state services portal Gosuslugi. Hasanov himself said the information "does not correspond to reality." The far-right Telegram channel Mnogonatsional published a video showing Hasanov getting out of a car belonging to the Federal Bailiff Service, apparently at a Moscow airport.

Hasanov had led the National-Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis of Moscow since July 2022. He also sat on the Council for Interethnic Issues under the Moscow government and the public council under the Moscow police headquarters.

Last summer, other leaders of Azerbaijani diaspora organizations were also stripped of Russian citizenship — Elshan Ibragimov, head of the Azerbaijani association in the Moscow region (he was deported to Azerbaijan), and Arshad Khankishiev, head of the diaspora in the Chelyabinsk region. This came amid deteriorating relations between Baku and Moscow after a police raid in Yekaterinburg in which ethnic Azerbaijanis were detained in a murder case, and two of those detained — brothers Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov — died. Azerbaijani forensic experts determined that their deaths were caused by multiple injuries.

In response, a court in Baku arrested Igor Kartavykh, director of Sputnik Azerbaijan, and employee Yevgeny Belousov, while Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry reported the detention of 11 Russians who turned out to be IT specialists who had emigrated from Russia. Kartavykh and Belousov were released after negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev. In May, three of the 11 detained Russians received sentences of three to four years in prison on money-laundering charges.