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On Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning to visit Azerbaijan for the first time during his new term as a president, the BBC Russian service reports.

Press Service of the Russian President succinctly stated on his working visit to Baku that Putin was planning to hold talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and to sign a number of bilateral agreements. "During the talks the two presidents will address key international and regional issues that are on the agenda, the legal regime of the Caspian Sea as well as the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," the press service said, as reports the BBC.

Aleksey Vlasov, the Executive Director of Political Studies "North-South", believes that there are many issues related to the bilateral dialogue, but the most important thing is the common line: whether Russia is a partner to Azerbaijan, or it perceives Azerbaijan as a state which has more to do with the West in the economy and in security policy?

"I think that Putin himself has not yet found a definitive answer to this question," the expert said. He also added that the assessment and interpretation of the visit will rather depend on the consequences and the momentum that the relations between Moscow and Baku will receive after Putin – Aliyev meeting.

"It’s a paradox: having fully clear agenda, the resulting documents of the visit remain so far completely unclear," Vlasov said.
IA “REX” reports that Natig Jafarli, Azerbaijani political scientist, in an interview with "Radio Liberty", stated that a public opinion was formed in Azerbaijan that Russia, namely President Putin wants to become an influential player in the presidential elections of Azerbaijan. "Our authorities are very much concerned in this regard. That’s why Putin's visit is that significant for them," he noted.

Another Azerbaijani political scientist Zardusht Alizadeh, referring to the issue of deprivation of Azerbaijani opposition leader Rustam Ibragimbekov of Russian citizenship, stated that "in this way the Russian government is trying to keep Baku in limbo and thus is getting additional preferences from it."

"Given the fact that the authorities are afraid of fair elections, I assure you, that Putin will get everything from them. So he arrives in here, having good trump cards in his hands," the political scientist said.

According to analyst Elkhan Shahinoglu, the head of the Center for Political Studies "Atlas", Putin can create problems for the Azerbaijani government. "The visit of President Vladimir Putin is directly related to the elections to be held in two months in Azerbaijan. Putin has two suggestions to Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan will have to become a member of the Eurasian Association and the Customs Union, which is the brainchild of the official Kremlin. Putin needs this in order not to let Azerbaijan to get a place in the orbit of the West, and to act within the interests of Russia in the South Caucasus", the analyst stated.

IA “REX” touched also upon the arrests of leaders of the Lezghin Federal National Cultural Autonomy (FLNCA) in Azerbaijan.
"We can only make a guess about the true reasons for the arrests of Russian citizens in Azerbaijan, who, on the one hand are accused of allegedly being "agents of Russian secret services," and on the other hand, are charged for "illegal possession and distribution of drugs," the agency reads.

Russian political observer Andrei Raevskii writes at Mediafax.ru that Moscow is interested in expanding military-technical cooperation with Baku and is aimed at building combat vessels for Azerbaijan.

According to him, the fact is that joint exercises with Turkey were recently held on the territory of Azerbaijan, and Zahid Oruc, MP of Milli Medjlis and member of the parliamentary committee on defense and security of Azerbaijan, stated about the prospect of Azerbaijan of forming a united army with Turkey using the NATO standards. He added that "the formula of cooperation with Turkey should not be resumed in the form of "one nation, two states", but in the context of" One nation, one army." In his turn, the Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania stated that "Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are intended to create a format of trilateral cooperation in the military industry."

"Naturally, Russia is not interested in implementation of the plan of establishing military alliance between Baku, Ankara and Tbilisi. Moscow's objective is to outstrip Turkey, strengthening the position of the Russian Navy in Baku and increasing the supply of Russian arms to Azerbaijan," the columnist writes.