Massive Crackdown on Russian Mercenaries! - RFU News

Today, the biggest news comes from Azerbaijan.

Here, the government has arrested Wagner fighters who fought for Russia in Ukraine, directly targeting the Kremlin’s most dangerous organization. It is a bold move that does not just reject Russian influence in the South Caucasus but actively begins to dismantle Moscow’s entire post-Soviet power network.

This is the first time a post-Soviet country has prosecuted its citizens for joining Wagner. The first two mercenaries, Ramil Aliyev and Ismayil Hasanov, had both served time in Russian penal colonies before being recruited into Wagner under Prigozhin’s Project-K and sent to fight in Ukraine. Both men had served time in Russian penal colonies before being recruited under Wagner’s Project-K, a prison pipeline organized by Yevgeny Prigozhin to fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine. The two Azerbaijanis are accused of using firearms and explosives in Ukraine, as well as attempting to recruit others to fight for Wagner. A court in Baku ordered them detained, applying criminal statutes typically used for mercenary or terror-related offenses. These charges go beyond domestic law; they are a warning to all former Wagner fighters: they will be treated not as veterans, but as war criminals.

The decision to prosecute Wagner fighters comes as part of a broader shift in Azerbaijan’s posture toward Moscow. Rather than quietly distance itself, Baku is now actively targeting Russian influence across multiple fronts: military, political, and informational. The arrests are not just about justice or legality, they are about cutting off Russian leverage. Project-K was one of Wager’s most controversial efforts, blending criminality with state-backed warfare. By going after these individuals now, Azerbaijan is effectively retroactively criminalizing its citizens' involvement in Russia’s proxy structure.

This legal offensive follows Baku’s decision to label Sputnik-Azerbaijan a Russian intelligence front, accusing its staff of running information warfare campaigns and building pro-Kremlin influence networks inside the country. While that episode focused on soft power, the Wagner arrests are something different: they mark the beginning of hard legal action against Russian hybrid operatives on Azerbaijani soil. No other country in the region has drawn such a hard legal line, making this a precedent-setting moment.

Diplomatic tensions have escalated in parallel, when a Russian delegation led by Emergency Situations Minister Aleksandr Kurenkov visited Baku in July carrying a diplomatic message from Vladimir Putin, President Illham Aliyev refused to meet them. That snub was deliberate and deeply symbolic, in the post-Soviet space, as Russia has traditionally relied on in-person meetings and backchannel diplomacy to maintain leverage. But this time, Azerbaijan shut the door; the refusal to receive Putin’s envoy suggests that Baku no longer sees Russian diplomacy as useful or necessary. It also signals that Azerbaijan is prepared to let relations deteriorate further if Moscow keeps pushing.

In the meantime, Azerbaijan is strengthening ties with Ukraine in both practical and symbolic ways. Baku recently sent specialized demining equipment to Ukrainian forces, support that may appear modest on paper, but carries real strategic weight. It directly contributes to Ukraine’s ability to clear liberated areas, protect civilians, and prepare for counteroffensive operations. Azerbaijan is openly siding with Ukraine on key security issues, while simultaneously targeting Russia’s covert networks at home. And it is doing so without Western prompting, showing that Russia’s isolation is becoming self-reinforcing. Behind all of this lies a deeper shift; Azerbaijan is no longer trying to balance between East and West. It is picking sides, and doing so with surgical precision. The prosecutions, media clampdown, and diplomatic snubs are part of a coherent policy aimed at dismantling Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus. For Moscow, this is not just a diplomatic headache; it is a strategic defeat, its once loyal partner is now helping Ukraine, rejecting backchannel envoys, and arresting Wagner fighters as criminals.

Overall, the crackdown on Wagner is not just a domestic legal move; it reshapes the regional landscape. By treating Russian mercenaries as criminals rather than veterans, Baku is signaling to the rest of the post-Soviet world that the old rules of Russian dominance no longer apply. Russia’s soft and hard power tools are being dismantled from within, and Azerbaijan is leading the way.