Zelenskyy’s Gabala Visit Upgrades Ukraine–Azerbaijan Bilateral Relations

(Vasif Huseynov – The Jamestown Foundation) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid his first wartime visit to Azerbaijan on April 25, signing six bilateral documents with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev covering security, the military-industrial complex, energy, trade, and humanitarian cooperation. The visit institutionalized a partnership previously confined largely to humanitarian aid and energy assistance, opening the way to militry-industrial co-production, joint work on unmanned systems, and an operational deployment of Ukrainian air-defense specialists already on the ground in Azerbaijan. By proposing Baku as a venue for prospective trilateral talks with Russia and the United States, Kyiv is publicly calling for Azerbaijan to play a mediator role in peace talks for Russia’s war against Ukraine. – Zelenskyy’s Gabala Visit Upgrades Ukraine–Azerbaijan Bilateral Relations   – Jamestown