Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Azerbaijan placed Kyiv’s wartime diplomacy inside a wider regional shift, in which Baku is acting with increasing independence and Moscow’s assumed authority in the South Caucasus is becoming harder to sustain.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Azerbaijan on 25 April was not simply a bilateral meeting between two presidents. His talks with Ilham Aliyev in Gabala, northern Azerbaijan, placed Ukraine’s wartime diplomacy inside a broader contest over authority, mediation and strategic autonomy in the South Caucasus.
According to the Ukrainian presidency, Zelenskyy and Aliyev held one-to-one and expanded-format talks focused on security, energy, humanitarian assistance and economic co-operation. Six bilateral documents were signed, including in the field of defence co-operation. Zelenskyy said security and joint production were now priority areas, while Aliyev noted the potential for military-technical co-operation between the two states.
The location gave the visit additional significance. Gabala lies in northern Azerbaijan, not far from Russia’s southern frontier. For Ukraine’s president to appear there publicly alongside Aliyev, more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, was a visible indication that Baku intends to preserve its own room for manoeuvre in relations with Kyiv, Moscow and Washington.
Zelenskyy also proposed that Azerbaijan could host trilateral negotiations involving Ukraine, Russia and the United States, provided Moscow was ready for diplomacy. The formulation was carefully framed. It did not signal Ukrainian readiness to accept talks on Russian terms. It instead placed Azerbaijan forward as a possible venue outside Moscow’s preferred diplomatic formats and, by implication, recognised Baku as a state capable of hosting talks between major adversaries.
That proposal was likely the most sensitive element of the visit. Moscow can dismiss Ukrainian diplomacy as tactical messaging. It is harder to explain why Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic and major South Caucasus actor, should host Zelenskyy, discuss defence-industrial co-operation with Ukraine, and be named as a possible venue for talks involving Russia itself.
The visit also challenged a familiar Russian assumption: that diplomacy in the post-Soviet space should, ultimately, pass through Moscow or take place under conditions acceptable to it. Azerbaijan’s decision to receive Zelenskyy did not amount to a rupture with Russia. Yet it showed that Baku is no longer prepared to behave as though its foreign policy requires Russian approval.
This is where the episode acquires a wider historical meaning. In the recent Russian-language book A Vanished Civilisation: An Unnoticed Catastrophe, Ukrainian historian Kuzari examines the disappearance of Turkic communities from parts of the South Caucasus and places that history within a broader account of Russian expansion into Turkic and Muslim spaces.
The book is not a study of the current Ukraine war, and it should not be treated as a neutral reference work on contemporary diplomacy. Its relevance lies elsewhere. In the section on Moscow’s ideology of expansion, Kuzari argues that Muscovy’s political identity developed partly in opposition to the Turkic-Muslim world of the post-Golden Horde space. As the Golden Horde fragmented, Moscow’s ideologists, in his account, increasingly depicted Tatars as enemies of Orthodoxy and presented expansion into Turkic-Muslim lands as both a religious and state-building mission.
That argument is historical rather than predictive. It does not explain every modern Russian policy decision, nor does it suggest that medieval ideological categories translate directly into contemporary statecraft. It does, however, help frame the symbolic importance of Azerbaijan’s conduct. Moscow has often approached the South Caucasus not merely as a neighbouring region, but as a space in which Russian mediation, influence and hierarchy should be accepted. Zelenskyy’s reception in Gabala challenged that assumption.
Azerbaijan did not ask Moscow’s permission to host Ukraine’s president. Nor did it present its position as subordinate to Russian preferences. It acted as a state with its own interests, partnerships and diplomatic options. That is a practical matter of foreign policy, but it also has symbolic force in a region where Russian power has often been expressed through the language of arbitration, protection and historical entitlement.
The Russian response reflected the difficulty of incorporating the visit into Moscow’s preferred narrative. Official commentary avoided a substantive assessment of Azerbaijan as a venue for negotiations. State-aligned media treated the visit in a restrained factual register. Nationalist commentators were more direct, framing Aliyev’s reception of Zelenskyy as a breach of expected loyalty.
That contrast was revealing. Russian official messaging could not easily present Azerbaijan as an enemy without damaging Moscow’s own regional diplomacy. Nor could it credibly claim that the meeting was insignificant, given the defence and diplomatic elements of the visit. The result was an uneasy mixture of minimal reporting, irritation and silence.
Azerbaijan’s policy should not be overstated. Baku has not joined an anti-Russian bloc. It has not severed its working relationship with Moscow. It continues to maintain economic, security and diplomatic channels with Russia. Its approach is more careful than that. Azerbaijan is expanding its ties with Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, the European Union and the United States while avoiding a formal confrontation with Russia.
That balancing act is precisely what made the Gabala visit significant. It was not a gesture of ideological alignment. It was an assertion of autonomy. Baku demonstrated that it can receive Ukraine’s president, discuss military-technical co-operation, and position itself as a potential diplomatic venue without accepting that Moscow has a veto over its choices.
The same pattern is visible across the South Caucasus. Since Azerbaijan restored control over Karabakh in 2023, Russia’s role as regional arbiter has diminished. Its peacekeeping presence did not prevent that outcome, and Armenia has since sought to diversify its security and diplomatic partnerships. The US-backed Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process has further reduced Moscow’s monopoly over regional mediation.
For Armenia, the lesson has been that reliance on Russian security guarantees carries limits. For Azerbaijan, the lesson has been different but related: Russian influence remains important, but it is no longer decisive in every regional calculation. For external actors, including the United States, Turkey and the European Union, the result is a more open diplomatic environment.
Ukraine is seeking to operate in that environment. Its outreach to Azerbaijan is not accidental. Azerbaijan is an energy producer, a transport hub, a state with its own experience of territorial conflict, and a government able to communicate with several competing geopolitical blocs. Kyiv’s engagement with Baku therefore expands Ukraine’s wartime diplomacy beyond the Euro-Atlantic core.
There is also an energy and connectivity dimension. Azerbaijan has become increasingly important to European discussions about alternative supply routes and transport corridors linking the Caspian region, the South Caucasus and Europe. For Ukraine, whose war effort depends not only on weapons but also on diplomatic reach and economic resilience, relations with such states are part of a wider strategy to prevent Russia from defining the conflict as a purely Western-Russian confrontation.
For Baku, Ukraine is also useful. Azerbaijan can present itself as a regional actor capable of maintaining links in several directions at once. It can support Ukraine’s territorial integrity while maintaining practical ties with Russia. It can co-operate with Turkey and Israel while engaging the European Union and Washington. It can host Zelenskyy without declaring itself part of a bloc. This is not neutrality in the passive sense. It is active balancing.
That approach carries risks. Russia still has economic tools, intelligence networks, media influence and political relationships across the South Caucasus. It can apply pressure indirectly, including through regional disputes, trade channels and information operations. Baku is aware of this. Its diplomacy is therefore calibrated, not theatrical.
Yet the fact that such calibration is possible is itself important. A decade ago, Moscow’s assumed authority in much of the post-Soviet space was stronger. The war against Ukraine has changed that. It has consumed Russian military resources, weakened the credibility of Russian security guarantees and forced neighbouring states to reconsider the costs of dependence on Moscow.
Zelenskyy’s visit to Gabala therefore belongs to a broader pattern. Central Asian states have also pursued more diversified diplomacy. Armenia has questioned the value of its Russian-led security arrangements. Azerbaijan has consolidated its regional position. Turkey has expanded its role as a security and connectivity actor. The European Union and the United States have become more visible in areas where Moscow previously expected deference.
This does not mean Russia has disappeared from the South Caucasus. It remains a major power with military, economic and political instruments. Geography alone ensures that it cannot be ignored. But influence and control are not the same. The Gabala meeting showed that Russia’s neighbours are increasingly prepared to distinguish between the two.
The historical framing offered by Kuzari’s book gives that development a sharper edge. If Moscow’s older imperial imagination cast Turkic-Muslim spaces as territories to be disciplined, absorbed or managed, then modern Azerbaijan’s autonomous diplomacy represents a direct refusal of that logic. It does not need to be anti-Russian to be consequential. It is enough that it is independent.
For Ukraine, that independence matters. Kyiv’s diplomatic strategy depends on showing that Russia is not the inevitable centre of political gravity across Eurasia. Every state that engages Ukraine on its own terms weakens the claim that Moscow can speak for, discipline or organise the region around it.
For Azerbaijan, the message is equally clear. Aliyev did not need to announce a strategic break. By hosting Zelenskyy, signing agreements, discussing defence co-operation and allowing Azerbaijan to be named as a possible venue for negotiations, Baku made its position clear through action.
That is why the visit matters. It was not only about six documents or a possible talks venue. It showed that the South Caucasus is being reorganised around several centres of influence rather than one. Russia remains a major regional actor, but it is no longer the unquestioned organiser of the political space around it. Zelenskyy’s visit to Gabala did not create that change. It made it visible.
