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During the rare visit of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to Baku no concrete deal on energy, which could challenge the Western energy companies dominating in post-Soviet republics, was reached, writes the Reuters.

“Russia has long tried to increase its presence in Azerbaijan, a country Europe is hoping to lessen its dependence on Russian gas with,” writes the agency.

However, according to the agency, the head of “Rosneft” Igor Sechin has signed a rather vague agreement with SOCAR in Azerbaijan. An anonymous source in the energy sector of Russia told the Reuters that Azerbaijan has requested such a high price for its assets that “Rosneft” is not intended to pay it. The source in SOCAR also noted that there are big plans to resolve the disagreements.

“Western oil majors like BP, “Statoil” and “Exxon Mobil” have dominated the Azeri oil industry since the collapse of the Soviet Union while relations between Moscow and Baku have been mostly cool,” the Reuters writes.

“Blomberg” agency touched upon the military cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan. According to the agency, Azerbaijan, having a territorial conflict with neighboring Armenia, claimed that the military cooperation with Russia is estimated at $4 billion. “It was the first time Azerbaijan disclosed the price of its arms deals,” states the article.

“Azerbaijan has increased military spending by almost 30 times to $3.7 billion in the past decade and repeatedly threatened to use force to regain control of the territory (Nagorno Karabakh – ed.), in case peace talks fail. A failure of talks would risk renewed war in a region where BP and partners have invested more than $35 billion in energy projects since 1994,” writes the Bloomberg.

During his visit to Baku Vladimir Putin encouraged to find a political solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, writes “Europe Online” magazine. “More than 20 years of negotiations under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were fruitless. Moscow has traditionally backed Armenia, which lacks Azerbaijan’s resources and is a close partner of Iran. But this summer, Russia has started delivery of a billion-dollar arms package, including tanks and rocket launchers, to Azerbaijan,” writes the source.

According to the magazine Russian experts think that Kremlin tries to keep the balance of forces in a strategically important region. “Aliyev, who took over the presidency after his father Heydar Aliyev died in 2003, is criticized in the West for his authoritarian style of government,” writes the Europe Online.