Day: November 28, 2023

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a call on Monday that recent American actions in support of Armenia had jeopardised U.S.-Azerbaijani ties, Baku said on Tuesday.

The two countries had enjoyed relatively cordial relations until Azerbaijani forces recaptured the largely ethnic Armenian-populated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September.

The United States provided diplomatic backing for Armenia, which had supported Karabakh’s separatist authorities, and U.S. officials visited Yerevan in the days after the offensive.

In a statement, Aliyev’s office said Aliyev had told Blinken that “the latest statements and actions taken by the U.S. have seriously damaged Azerbaijan-U.S. relations”.

It said Baku had taken note of comments by Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien during a congressional hearing that there was “no chance of business as usual” with Azerbaijan after the offensive in Karabakh.

However, it added that Aliyev and Blinken had agreed, in the interest of normalising ties, that O’Brien would visit Baku, and Washington would lift a ban on senior Azerbaijani officials visiting the U.S.

Baku’s military victory in Karabakh prompted the exodus of almost all the territory’s 120,000 ethnic Armenians. The United States and other Western countries have pledged aid to help Armenia cope with the influx.

Armenia, a traditional ally of Russia, has in recent months distanced itself from Moscow and sought closer ties with the West.

The wife of Ukraine’s military intelligence chief has been poisoned with heavy metals, several Ukrainian media outlets reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed intelligence sources.

Marianna Budanova is the wife of Kyrylo Budanov, who heads Ukrainian military intelligence agency GUR, which has been prominently involved in clandestine operations against Russian forces throughout the 21-month war.

Budanov’s public profile has surged in Ukraine, where he is portrayed as a behind-the-scenes mastermind of efforts to strike back at Russia. In Russian media he is a hate figure.

If confirmed as deliberate, the alleged poisoning of his wife would represent the most serious targeting of a high-profile Ukrainian leadership figure’s family member since Moscow began its invasion in February last year.

Ukraine’s military intelligence and domestic security services did not respond to requests for comment.

The reports did not make any suggestions of who was behind the alleged poisoning or clarify when it took place.

One media outlet, Babel, cited an unnamed source who said Budanova had been in hospital, and was finishing a course of treatment for the effects of the poisoning. Public broadcaster Suspilne and online outlets Ukrainska Pravda and RBC Ukraina also reported she had been poisoned.

Ukrainska Pravda cited a source saying the poison had likely been administered in her food and that several other GUR staff members had also been poisoned.

Russian media has reported that a court in Moscow had arrested Budanov in absentia in April on terrorism charges.

Moscow has previously blamed Ukrainian secret services for the murders of a pro-war Russian blogger and a pro-war journalist on Russian soil. Kyiv denies involvement in those deaths.

Budanov has previously said he would “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine”.