Russia Claims Ongoing Contacts With Baku Over Detained Sputnik Azerbaijan Chiefs

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 9.​ Russia maintains contacts with the Azerbaijani side, including through law enforcement agencies, on the situation with the heads of Sputnik Azerbaijan arrested in the country, the Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said at a briefing, Trend reports.

"We maintain contacts with the Azerbaijani side on this matter, including through law enforcement agencies," she added.

On February 24, the Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Aykhan Hajizada, announced that the Azerbaijani branch of the Russia Today (Sputnik Azerbaijan) news agency had been shut down.

He said that the mentioned organization could only be accredited through a single correspondent.

Nevertheless, it became known that Sputnik Azerbaijan continued its operations, and its staff kept reporting to work.

On July 1, during an operation at the office of Sputnik Azerbaijan news agency, the executive director of Sputnik's Baku branch, Igor Kartavykh, and the editor-in-chief, Yevgeny Belousov, were detained. Both of them have been charged under the following articles of the Criminal Code: 178.3.1 (fraud committed causing large-scale damage), 192.2.2 (illegal entrepreneurship with large-scale income), 192.2.3 (committed by an organized group), 193-1.3.1 (legalization of property obtained through crime), and 193-1.3.2 (committed on a large scale), and the Khatai District Court has ruled for pretrial detention as a preventive measure.

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