A court in Baku has sentenced eight Russian citizens accused of large-scale illegal drug trafficking. The ruling was reported by Minval.
Dmitry Fedorov, Boris Timoshov, Aleksei Vasilchenko and Ilya Bezugly were each given three years in prison. Four other defendants, Sergei Sofronov, Anton Drachev, Dmitry Bezugly and Valery Dulov, were each sentenced to four years in prison.
It is not known whether the convicted men admitted guilt. This is now the third court ruling in cases involving Russians detained in Azerbaijan last summer.
Earlier, in April, Aleksandr Vaisero was sentenced to four years in prison. In May, two other Russian citizens, Igor Zabolotsky and Ilnur Valitov, were each given three-year prison terms.
In these cases, the Russians were also accused of laundering criminal proceeds. The report says the detentions of Russian citizens in Azerbaijan began after a raid by Russian security forces in Yekaterinburg targeting members of the Azerbaijani diaspora.
In the spring of 2026, Shahin Shykhlinski, head of the national and cultural organization Azerbaijan-Ural, was convicted in a case over the organization of a murder committed 25 years ago. He was sentenced to 24 years in a maximum-security penal colony, while his son Mutvaly received eight years in a general-regime colony.