Baku sentences first Russian citizen arrested in Yekaterinburg following the murders of Azerbaijani diaspora members

Russian businessman Alexander Vaysero became the first Russian citizen detained in Baku to receive a four-year prison sentence.

Azerbaijani investigators believe that Vaysero laundered more than 727,000 manats (approximately 32 million rubles) earned on foreign gambling sites. To conceal the illicit origin of the funds, according to the prosecution, he used bank cards issued to third parties.

Vaysero, who arrived in Baku as a tourist in June 2025, was arrested on July 1 along with a group of other Russians. These arrests occurred amid diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Baku following the summer events of 2025 in Yekaterinburg, where two people were killed during the arrest of members of the Azerbaijani diaspora. Since then, the Russian citizens have been in custody and face charges including cybercrime and drug trafficking.

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According to the award’s founder, the international organisation RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR), the nominations committee praised the “courage and integrity” of the laureates, who “risk their freedom and even their lives to report on the war and speak out against human rights violations, war crimes and the escalating repression of journalists, human rights defenders and anti-war activists in Russia”.