Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has declined to travel to St. Petersburg for an informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) due to a “busy work schedule,” the Azerbaijani state news agency AZERTAC reported.
On December 20, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow expected Aliyev to arrive on Monday, December 22. “Yes, we are waiting. We are waiting, we are preparing,” Peskov told an RIA Novosti correspondent when asked.
After it became clear Aliyev would not come to St. Petersburg, the Kremlin spokesman said: “No, we are absolutely understanding. Heads of state really do have a very tight schedule, especially in December, ahead of the New Year.” He added that Moscow and Baku “continue to develop their partnership.”
Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan cooled after December 2024, when an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet flying from Baku to Grozny, Russia, crashed in Kazakhstan. The aircraft was damaged by Russian missile defense systems and went down during an emergency landing in the Kazakh city of Aktau. There were 67 people on board; 38 died in the crash.
The Azerbaijani outlet Minval links Aliyev’s absence from the December summit in St. Petersburg directly to that air disaster. Although Moscow recently acknowledged responsibility, the outlet writes, it has not taken “any of the mandatory actions that in the modern international system are considered the minimal standard of accountability”: it has yet to pay compensation or identify and punish those responsible.
Aliyev last visited the Russian Federation in October 2024 before the plane crash.
In May this year, the Azerbaijani president did not travel to Moscow for events marking the 80th anniversary of Victory, including the military parade on Red Square. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Aliyev canceled the trip “due to participation in domestic events dedicated to the memory of his father, Heydar Aliyev.”
