It has become known who the woman from Russia is, with whom Ramiz Mehtiyev was talking on the phone

The video material distributed today by the State Security Service (SSS) contains a fragment of a telephone conversation between former Head of the Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehtiyev and an unknown woman.

During the conversation, Ramiz Mehtiyev asks the woman for advice regarding the transfer to someone of a letter he prepared about "changes in the public administration system" in Azerbaijan - essentially about a governance model following a coup d'état.

The identity of the woman is not disclosed in the video material.

According to information obtained by APA, this woman works at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and served as an intermediary in R. Mehtiyev's contacts with Russian security agencies:

"The source reported that during the period when Mehtiyev held the position of President of ANAS (2019-2022), he maintained contact with his handlers in Russia precisely through the agent network of security agencies in the RAS.

It should be noted that on February 19, 2022, Ramiz Mehtiyev was dismissed from the position of ANAS President. Just three months before this - on November 25-26, 2021, he received a delegation in Baku headed by the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Sergeyev. Mehtiyev personally met the guests at Heydar Aliyev International Airport, and at the meeting held at ANAS, he was presented with a commemorative medal from the RAS.

The fact that Russian intelligence agencies (particularly the FSB) have powerful control mechanisms and agent networks in the Russian Academy of Sciences and other scientific institutions has been repeatedly noted in international media and investigations. This system has been preserved since Soviet times, and sometimes intelligence officers operate in the RAS as "consultants" or "experts." According to the source, the woman with whom Ramiz Mehtiyev maintained contact is one of such "experts."