Azerbaijani authorities are going all in now – Yevgeny Minchenko

On the sidelines of the presentation of the Dynamics of Friendliness of Communication Regimes of Post-Soviet Countries by the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications (NIIRC), Russian political scientist Yevgeny Minchenko commented on the difference between the influence of the Armenian and Azerbaijani diasporas in Russia.

“I think that the Azerbaijani authorities are going all in now. But the question is how much this will be limited to rhetoric and restrictions in the communications sphere. There are economic ties, there is a very influential and financially secure Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia, there are a large number of Azerbaijani citizens who have dual citizenship, and there are ethnic Azerbaijanis who have only Russian citizenship.

Statistics on ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Russia, and the influence of their elites, are not obvious. The key difference that allows Aliyev to interact somewhat more actively is that the Armenian diaspora is distanced from the Armenian authorities, while the Azerbaijani diaspora is very closely integrated into Aliyev’s team,” Minchenko said.