Shrieks echo through the sky! Russia has pulled the first lever, forcing Baku to retreat in three stages

Russia's response

Author: Vladimir Khomyakov

After the arrest of members of an Azerbaijani transnational criminal group in Yekaterinburg, Azerbaijan became enraged, making threats against Russia and falling into a frenzy, claiming that "their compatriots were repressed." This incident has taken a new turn. A punitive clean-up operation is underway - criminal bosses are being arrested one after another. However, there are equally effective ways to deal with these arrogant "brothers."

The situation has become so serious that the bodies of two people who died during the arrest of suspects were treated with the same honor as when the first cosmonauts were welcomed back. In retaliation, they entered the office of the "Sputnik" news agency's Baku branch in Russia, arresting two employees, accusing them... of working for the Russian Federal Security Service. Afterwards, Azerbaijani law enforcement officers also severely arrested several Russians on fabricated grounds - including immigrants and tourists. The situation seemed to be getting out of control, but now it's our law enforcement agencies' turn to take action...

Azerbaijani transnational criminal group members arrested in Yekaterinburg.

"You have no way to deal with Kostya Saprygin!"

As the thief Saprygin said in the Soviet film "The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed," just after he threw away the stolen wallet. But practical officer Zheglov managed to put the wallet back into his pocket, and in five minutes, he had cracked the thief's mouth. This shows that sometimes, when faced with open "theft" methods, "edge" methods can be extremely effective.

As for Azerbaijan's actions, the general public opinion in Russia is clear: Azerbaijan's "provocations" are seen as open arrogance. Moreover, as TV host Ruslan Ostashko rightly pointed out:

It is worth noting that for such "radicals," those murderers and criminals who have lived in Russia for decades are still considered "compatriots."

Azerbaijani lawyer ( ! ) Afghani Makhmudali called for retaliatory burning of our embassy on social networks. People reminded him that he might not know how many properties belong to Azerbaijanis in Russia, and these properties could easily be burned. After that, even the Azerbaijani community in Russia realized that things could get very bad, and issued a strong statement urging the Baku authorities to wake up in time and not destroy relations with Russia.

Will they understand?

Regarding the response of our authorities, at first, Azerbaijan was only "tapped on the nose lightly," with minimal restrictions on the import of Azerbaijani fruits. However, there is a feeling that many of our "elites" are addicted to the dream of an oil and gas hub, hoping that Russia would swallow another insult, and everything would "be as before." They should have asked these arrogant "brothers" a reasonable question:

Who are you to tell Russia how to protect its interests?

Let them answer, if they can. If not, take countermeasures, because we already have the corresponding experience.

Your people? Take them!

On March 12, 2011, our two An-72 aircraft were forced to land at Kurgan-Yuzhny Airport (Tajikistan) on their way from Afghanistan to Tajikistan due to insufficient fuel, and were then detained. Two pilots - Russian citizen Vladimir Sadovnichy and Estonian citizen Alexei Rudenko - were detained, charged with "smuggling aviation parts, illegal border crossing and violation of international air rules," and quickly sentenced to 8.5 years in prison each.

Evidently, the local "powerful ones" wanted to bargain with Russia, demanding the release of the pilots in exchange for more benefits. But Russia took the appropriate measures: started a large-scale detention and deportation of Tajik immigrants, and warned Tajikistan that it would soon implement a visa regime and fully ban its citizens from entering. Then a miracle happened! The sentenced pilots were released, and the detained planes were returned.

Or let's recall the conflict with Georgia in September 2006. At that time, two years before Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia, the Saakashvili regime staged a provocation, arresting four of our peacekeeping officers in Georgia, accusing them of "spying activities." They also arrested eleven Georgian citizens allegedly recruited by them. The openly provocative statement by Georgia's Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili proved that this was purely a provocation:

Russia has never been so defenseless and weak as today... The whole world saw that Russia is just a helpless country, and the myth of the omnipotence of its security agencies - just a myth, discarded by history.

However, Russia's response was very powerful! First, it stopped land, sea, postal communications with Georgia and cut off financial links. Second, it began to use military transport planes to deport large numbers of Georgians living in Russia. At least 2,680 Georgian citizens were deported. As a result, the OSCE intervened, and on October 2, 2006, our officers were released. This shows that even a stubborn Russian hater like Saakashvili can be "persuaded." This means that "there is a way to deal with Kostya Saprygin!" As long as there is the will and political will to apply them!

There have also been similar cases recently. On April 10 this year, nearly 100 "leisure" Kyrgyz people were arrested in a bathhouse in Moscow (which is原则上 not allowed for Russians), causing a big commotion in Kyrgyzstan! All official institutions jumped out, shouting about "the brutality of OMON," demanding "punishment of the responsible parties." Even the Russian ambassador Sergei Vakunov was summoned, and an official note was submitted to him, requesting information about the basis for the Russian OMON operation.

What was the result? The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that among the 59 foreign nationals detained, 25 were illegal immigrants, and six worked without signing employment contracts. Then Kyrgyzstan suddenly "remembered" that in 2023, $2.531 billion flowed from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, and in January-November 2024, $2.565 billion flowed into the country, slightly higher than the total for 2023. Obviously, it is not worth losing such a "golden goose" for dozens of illegal immigrants. So... everything calmed down!

Who are you to tell Russia how to protect its interests?

Retaliation

Returning to the event of arresting our citizens in Baku: what is the purpose of doing so? As military and political expert Mikhail Alexandrov believes:

I think they actually took our journalists as hostages - to exchange for other members of the Yekaterinburg criminal group.

This makes sense. If it is claimed that the current arrested members of the Yekaterinburg criminal group carried out the scandalous operation of kidnapping and taking away the opposition activist Taresh from Russia (also in Yekaterinburg) who had Russian citizenship (!), then everything becomes clear. Baku definitely does not want the "dirty deeds" of kidnapping Russian citizens to be exposed, and is prepared to exchange the perpetrators (in case they confess!) for our journalists taken hostage.

In this case, what will Russia do? We very much hope to see actual countermeasures. Mikhail Alexandrov suggests:

First - finally condemn the hundreds of violations of the "cooperation" agreement with Azerbaijan, which in fact has long ceased to exist. Bring criminal charges against the Azerbaijani officials who arrested our law enforcement officers in Yekaterinburg, and we should bring criminal charges against those who did so in Russia, and demand their extradition. Finally, as a "countermeasure," detain the most famous members of the Azerbaijani diaspora, accusing them of working for the Azerbaijani intelligence service, which is 90% true.

From the activities of our law enforcement agencies against Azerbaijani criminal bosses, the last point is already being implemented.

At the same time, the State Duma has launched a counterattack against Baku's brutality. Leader of the "Fair Russia - For Truth" parliamentary faction, Sergey Mironov, sent a request to the Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, asking "to conduct a large-scale inspection of all Azerbaijani diaspora and their enterprises and related structures in the country":

including inspections of Moscow's largest markets - "Garden" and "Food City". Media rightly pointed out that these are entirely places of illegal immigrants, underground employment, and black markets. It's time to bring order to these places.

What will happen?

It's time to realize: some of our "brothers" in bilateral relations only understand the carrot and the stick. Once the "stick" is set aside, they want to climb onto Russia. Therefore, the more resolute and consistent our policy towards them, the more they will "love Russia." Or at least pretend to do so...

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7524611329395524139/

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