Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend A.Gasimova / The Ambassador of Russia to Azerbaijan, Vasili Istratov, has refuted information by the Azerbaijani press regarding Russia's connection with the collapse of the multi-storey building in the center of Baku.
On 28 August at approximately 17:00 hours, the 16-storey building constructed by the company 'Mutafakkir' in Mammad Nakchivani Street collapsed. According to the initial version, the building collapsed due to contravention of security regulations during construction. According to the official data, the death toll reached 12.
"The article published in Zerklo newspaper says that Russia is behind this tragic incident because it is interested in de-stabilizing the situation in Azerbaijan before the presidential elections, the Ambassador briefed the media on 30 August. Such statements are considered as overstepping journalist ethics. The newspaper considers this incident as de-facto of Russian war announced against Azerbaijan. With my statement, I am not against freedom of expression, but it must be within the frameworks".
The article published in Azerbaijani Zerklo newspaper on 30 August succeeded to make clear as a result of journalist searches that the collapsed building was taken with a professional video camera two days before its collapse. This was confirmed by owners in nearby shops. One of the sellers reported to the journalist of Zerklo that a young man of Slavic appearance, under the age of 25-30 years of age conscientiously took videos of thebuilding from various angles. He was described as wearing sports attire continued taking videos of the building from its roof. In addition, the seller said that the video operator got into touch with the real estate office sale which is located near the collapsed building.
The newspaper reports that several inhabitants of the buildings close to the collapsed building had stated that a week prior to the collapse of the building, there were rumors that this building would collapse in the near future.
"It is not secret that Azerbaijan presents non-prevented geopolitical rivalry between well-known force centers and therefore, during the pre-election period, Azerbaijan becomes secretive and has obvious political confrontations between various internal groups of power," the newspaper reports.
"The upcoming elections are very serious and somebody in the Kremlin would very much like 2003 to be repeated. Minimally (maximally Kremlin suggests its person to come to power) Kremlin wants the dependence of the Azerbaijani power to reach such a level from where Azerbaijan will become a political colony," the Zerklo reports.