Freedom House: Aliyev's aggression may have led to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s evident success in using military aggression to reinforce his rule may have contributed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022, Freedom House said in the latest edition of its Nations in Transit report.

According to Freedom House, Putin himself had reached for this tool on multiple occasions in the past, and there was reason to believe that it could work again.

Aliyev succeeded his father as president of Azerbaijan in 2003, and its already low score in Nations in Transit has fallen by half since then, as the regime moved to crush opposition parties, independent media, and civic activism.

"In 2020, Aliyev launched a military offensive against Armenian forces in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing thousands of people and displacing many more. The conflict, which seriously destabilized the region’s security arrangements, also yielded territorial gains for Baku, bolstered the president’s political position, and provided a pretext for further smothering of free expression," the report says.

"In this repressive environment, persistent social problems have continued to grow worse. During 2021, the state turned a blind eye to brutal attacks against women and members of the LGBT+ community, resulting in the suicide of a long-suffering victim of domestic abuse, Sevil Atakishiyeva, and the murder and immolation of a transgender woman named Nurray, among other cases."