The deaths of two ethnic Azerbaijanis amid allegations of torture during a police raid last week in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg has quicklyescalatedinto a diplomatic confrontation highlighting difficulties in Russia's relations with other former Soviet republics.

Azerbaijani officials said on July 1 that post-mortem examinations of two brothers detained during a large-scale police operation in Yekaterinburg late last month showed signs they were beaten.

The state prosecutor's office in Baku said it has opened a case into "the torture and deliberate killing with particular cruelty of Azerbaijani citizens and ethnic Azerbaijanis by officers of law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation."

The accusations and tit-for tat diplomatic moves surrounding the issue threaten to severely damage relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, an oil-producing country that has close ties with Turkey.

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Analysts, meanwhile, say Azerbaijan's assertive stance over the matter reflects a broader realignment in a region that Moscow once dominated.

Buoyed by military victories in Nagorno-Karabakh, increased energy exports to Europe, and strategic ties with Turkey, Baku appears less willing to accommodate Russia's "heavy-handed diplomacy," they say, which could have a significant impact on regional geopolitics.

"Azerbaijan is sending a signal that it wants to increase the distance from Moscow," according to RFE/RL South Caucasus expert Vadim Dubnov.

"It is correcting the imbalance that has developed over recent years in the relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, and equidistance from all centers of power is a hallmark of all Baku's diplomatic maneuvers," he added.

Relations between Moscow and Baku took a hit in December 2024 when a Russian missile defense unit reportedlyshot downan Azerbaijani passenger aircraft near the Georgia-Russia border, killing 38 civilians.

Though Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement of regret, Azerbaijan has since pursued legal action in international courts. In May 2025, Aliyev declined to attend a Victory Day parade in Moscow -- an absence widely interpreted as a diplomatic snub.

Things worsened after law enforcement officials on June 27 arrested dozens of ethnic Azerbaijanis accused of being involved in organized crime and allegedly in several murders dating back to the early 2000s. Two of the men detained -- Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov -- died in custody under suspicious circumstances.

Eyewitness accounts and family testimonies, supported by leaked footage and interviews, alleged the detainees were subjected to beatings and torture.

Russian authorities, who did not report the deaths for several days, have denied wrongdoing, attributing one death to heart failure and launching a preliminary investigation into the second.

The Azerbaijani government reacted with unprecedented diplomatic force.

It summoned Russia's charge d'affaires in Baku, Pyotr Volokovykh, to demand a transparent probe while characterizing the incident as an "extrajudicial killing with ethnic overtones."