Aliyev reveals secret Russia-Germany talks on Ukraine held in Baku

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on July 21 that a secret meeting of former senior Russian and German officials had taken place in Baku in early July to discuss possible paths toward ending the war.

The statement was made at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin.

“Our territory was used for such a meeting without our knowledge,” Aliyev told reporters, adding that despite the absence of Azerbaijani representatives at the talks, “flight data allows me to assert that the secret meeting in Baku did indeed take place.”

According to Aliyev, the meeting took place between July 12 and 14. His government learned of the talks from a publication in The Times, after which it conducted its own investigation based on flight data.

Who attended the talks

The unofficial German delegation included Ronald Pofalla, former chief of staff to Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Matthias Platzeck, former Minister-President of Brandenburg, Bloomberg reports. The Russian side was represented by Viktor Zubkov, a former prime minister and current chairman of the board of directors, and Valery Fadeev, who heads the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.

The German tabloid Bild reported that Azerbaijan’s border service recorded the arrival of Platzeck and Pofalla on a Berlin–Baku flight on July 12; the Russian participants flew in shortly after them, the Moscow Times writes.

Berlin distances itself

Merz firmly distanced his government from back-channel diplomacy.

“I have no knowledge of such a meeting,” he said in response to a journalist’s question at the press conference.

The German government described the talks as a purely private initiative, organized without state involvement or any official authorization.

Aliyev took a more measured stance.

“If this meeting leads to an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine, we would certainly welcome it,” he said, while emphasizing that Azerbaijan had not known in advance that the meeting was being held on its territory.

A pattern of secret contacts

The Baku meeting was not an isolated case. According to The Times, similar covert diplomatic meetings aimed at quietly re-establishing contacts with people in the Kremlin’s circle took place in Baku and Abu Dhabi between 2024 and 2025. A December 2025 TVP World report linked some of the same German participants to earlier meetings with Putin allies in those cities.

The revelation came during Aliyev’s visit to Berlin, where he signed a bilateral agreement with Merz — and several days after the Azerbaijani president stated at the Shusha Global Media Forum that the war between Russia and Ukraine “must be stopped immediately.”