A Greeting from Azerbaijan Addressing Complications in Russian-Azerbaijani Relations: Kiselev

The head of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, Dmitry Kiselev, has made a statement regarding the employees of Sputnik Azerbaijan who were arrested in Baku, Igor Kartavikh and chief editor Yevgeny Belousov, as reported by Lenta.ru.

According to him, the journalists were arrested on baseless charges. "They can be immediately released from captivity. Their release would be an important step towards improving relations between Moscow and Baku," the editor noted.

Kiselev emphasized that those who arrested the Russian journalists, without any objective claims regarding their professional activities, understood that this serves as a greeting for the complications in Russian-Azerbaijani relations.

It should be added that on June 30, police arrived at the Sputnik Azerbaijan office in Baku. Law enforcement officials detained Kartavikh and Belousov, accusing the journalists of illegal entrepreneurship and fraud, sentencing them to four months of preliminary detention.