The tension between Russia and Azerbaijan has increased today, following the Kremlin’s statement that it condemns Azerbaijan’s decision to annul all Russian cultural events after arrests in Russia of people of Azeri origin who are considered suspicious of serious crimes.

Investigators in the Russian industrial city of Yekaterineburg held several raids last week in houses living in people of Azeri -related crimes that had been committed in the past but had not been resolved and including a series of murders. They announced that they arrested six people who had all Russian passports, as well as that two of the suspects were killed.

According to the announcement of the investigating authorities, one of the suspects died of heart failure and that medical examinations would reveal the cause of the other suspect’s death.

Baku accused Russian police of making out -of -court executions based on “ethnic reasons”, a claim that Moscow rejected.

Today, police in Azerbaijan announced that they are raids at the offices of Sputnik Azerbaijan, a local branch of the Russian state -run media agency Rossiya Segodnya.

The Foreign Ministry has previously called on Russia’s head of “brutal murders”, as he described them, and Azerbaijan’s parliament withdrew the planned bilateral talks in Moscow and canceled the visit of the Russian Prime Minister.

On Sunday, the Azerbaijan Ministry of Culture also announced that it cancels cultural events scheduled for Russian state and private organizations because of “the flamboyant targeted and out -of -court murders and acts of violence committed by Russian services”.

Asked about the decision of the Ministry of Culture, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today: “We are honestly undergoing such decisions. It is important to continue working to clarify the reasons and nature of the events that, in the view of the Azeri side, caused such steps.

“We believe that everything that is happening (in Ekaterinburg) relates to the work of law enforcement services and this cannot and should not be a reason for such a reaction,” Peskofo told reporters.