Why are ties between Azerbaijan and Russia fraying?

A man walks past the 'Russian House', the Russian information and cultural centre in Baku, Azerbaijan [File: Aziz Karimov/Reuters]

In 2001, a man was stabbed to death near a lakeside restaurant in Yekaterinburg, an urban centre in Russia’s Ural Mountains region.

With his dying breath, he whispered the names of his alleged killers to the police, local media claimed.