President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Azerbaijan, AFP reported, citing a Ukrainian official.
“We landed in Azerbaijan,” the official said, adding that the visit was aimed at “security and energy cooperation, coordination.”
The trip follows Zelensky’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as Kyiv seeks to share its drone expertise with Gulf countries affected by the war in Iran.
This is the first visit by a Ukrainian leader to a South Caucasus country since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It also signals how far some post-Soviet republics have come in distancing themselves from the Kremlin’s dominance.
Two days before the start of the full-scale invasion on Feb. 22, 2022, Azerbaijan and Russia signed a strategic partnership declaration in Moscow.
Azerbaijan has repeatedly expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine since 2022. However, it has kept a somewhat low-key position on the war, often sticking to the “Russia-Ukraine conflict” narrative. A pro-Ukraine rally in the capital, Baku, signaled warmer public support for Ukraine’s fight to defend its sovereignty.
That changed in December 2024, when Russia shot down an Azerbaijani AZAL plane, killing 38 people, many of them Azerbaijani nationals. Russia blamed Ukraine for the incident.
Azerbaijani media speculated about technical problems with president Ilham Aliyev’s own plane in Russian airspace as it was flying to St. Petersburg to attend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s informal meeting of CIS leaders. The Azerbaijani Turan news agency reported that the aircraft lost its GPS signal en route.
“The similarities in the technical problems encountered by Aliyev’s and the crashed AZAL planes are striking, in particular, the loss of GPS signals over Russian-controlled airspace,” the agency wrote.
A few months later, the agency said the story reflected the author’s own perception and closed down a few days afterward, citing economic reasons.
Aliyev has not flown to Russia since the AZAL plane downing.
In the aftermath, Zelensky called Aliyev to offer help with the investigation and discuss assistance in bringing the case to an international court, similar to Ukraine’s case over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Answering Ukrainian journalists at Azerbaijan’s 3rd Shusha Global Media Forum in July 2025, Aliyev said, “We may wait like Ukraine did for 10 years if needed,” referring to Ukraine’s efforts to hold Russia accountable for the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane.
On April 15, 2026, the Russian and Azerbaijani foreign ministries signed a declaration resolving the 2024 AZAL Flight 8243 crash, describing the incident as an “unintentional action” by Russian air defenses. The agreement settled compensation issues and marked a diplomatic effort to move beyond the incident.
It was not immediately clear whether Baku was still considering taking the case to an international court.
On Wednesday, five Azerbaijani tankers were removed from the EU’s 20th sanctions package against Russia. The tankers, owned by the Azerbaijani State Shipping Company and SOCAR, had been targeted for allegedly helping Russia’s shadow fleet.