By Nailia Bagirova
BAKU (Reuters) -Azerbaijan said it issued a strong protest to the Russian ambassador on Friday after a Russian Iskander missile damaged its embassy in Kyiv.
In a statement, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said the blast from the missile destroyed part of the embassy’s perimeter wall and caused serious damage to the diplomatic compound. No one was hurt, and the ministry spokesperson said the embassy was continuing to operate.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during which both men condemned the incident and Aliyev called it an unacceptable violation of international law, his press office said.
The foreign ministry said Russian air strikes had also taken place near the embassy in January 2024 and August 2025, the first leaving a big crater nearby and the second causing damage to buildings.
Azerbaijan’s consulate in Kharkiv was seriously damaged by an air strike in March 2022. Two Russian drone attacks in August this year injured staff and damaged infrastructure at an oil depot of Azerbaijani state company SOCAR in the Odesa region.
At the meeting with the Russian ambassador, “it was stressed that such attacks on our diplomatic missions are unacceptable, and it was requested that the Russian side conduct an appropriate investigation into the issue and provide a detailed explanation”.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had carried out mass strikes overnight against military-industrial sites in Ukraine and energy infrastructure that supplied them.
Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan were seriously damaged last December when an Azerbaijani passenger plane crashed, killing 38 people, after Russian air defences accidentally fired on it in what President Vladimir Putin said was a “tragic incident”.
Putin met Aliyev last month and promised compensation to those affected.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova in Baku; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
