The head of the Azerbaijani community in the Ural Mountains, Shahin Shikhlinsky, was found guilty of using violence against a government official and sentenced to nine years in a maximum security colony. Kommersant Ural newspaper wrote that the ruling was issued on April 13 by the Kirovsky District Court of Yekaterinburg.
Taking into account the fact that in early March, Shichlinsky was sentenced to 22 years in prison (the first four years in prison, the rest in a high-security colony) on charges of murder and attempted murder committed in 2001 and 2011, he will have to spend 24 years in the colony.
The case of violence against a government official, in which Shahin Shikhlinsky and his son Motvali are accused, is linked to the arrest of the Azerbaijani diaspora leader in July 2025. When special forces officers tried to pull Shikhlinsky out of the car driven by his son Mutvali, the driver suddenly backed away. As a result, one of the FSB officers fell.
Motvali Shikhlinsky claimed that he had unintentionally shot down a special forces soldier. He said he regretted what happened but did not admit guilt. The court sentenced Motvala Shikhlinsky to 8 years in a general order colony.
Representatives of the Azerbaijani community in the Urals were detained amid the crisis in relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, which arose after the crash of an Azerbaijani Airlines passenger plane in Aktau, Kazakhstan due to the fault of the Russian air defense forces in Aktau, Kazakhstan in December 2024. In October 2025, for the first time since the start of the escalation, Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev met in Dushanbe.
In March, the court heard the case of murders and attempted murders of entrepreneurs in 2001-2011, in which six members of the Azerbaijani community in the Ural Mountains and its head, Shahin Shikhlinsky, were accused. The court sentenced the defendants to prison terms ranging from 10 to 22 years.