On July 21, Pyotr Tolstoy, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma, said that Russia is a leading world power, and the countries that were part of it used to depend on it and will continue to do so. According to him, at some point, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Ukraine decided that they had the opportunity to look at another geopolitical vector. "However, from the economic, political, geographical, and historical points of view, there is no other direction for these countries except Russia," he added.

These statements of Pyotr Tolstoy were met with protest in Azerbaijan.

Aydın Mirzazada, MP of the Azerbaijani Parliament, objected to the speech of Pyotr Tolstoy. The MP said that the vice-speaker of the Russian State Duma is making a big mistake.

Mirzazada emphasized that his opinions contradict the norms of international law, the official policy of Russia, and the political line of the ruling United Russia Party: "Pyotr Tolstoy should know that one of the main conditions for maintaining peace and stability in today's world is to respect the sovereignty, state independence, and territorial integrity of states. What Pyotr Tolstoy said is a remnant of medieval thinking, the occupation ideology of Tsarist Russia."

Aydın Mirzazadeh said that he believes that the official circles of Russia will soon clarify and refute the views of Tolstoy, the vice-speaker representing the ruling party: "Today, Russia has relations with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan and Russia are strategic allies, and questioning the sovereignty of a strategic ally is an unforgivable, big mistake for a politician."

Ziyafat Asgarov, the chairman of the Defense, Security, and Anti-corruption Committee of the Azerbaijani Parliament, said that the statement of Tolstoy is not understandable at all, it harms the existing relations between Russia and Azerbaijan and the agreements regulating these relations.

The chairman of the committee of the parliament emphasized that the independence of Azerbaijan is eternal: "Unfortunately, the number of people like Zatulin and Milonov, who cast a shadow on relations with Azerbaijan in Russia, is increasing, and this situation, including the statement of the deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy, harms interstate relations."

MP Azay Guliyev said: "The campaign of threats and intimidation that has been spreading against Azerbaijan in Russia in recent days is a cause for serious concern, it cannot be considered a coincidence. This is because this threat is being voiced not only by journalists or political scientists but also by politicians and people in the leadership of the parliament."

Azay Guliyev believes that Russian officials have started to play their cards with the language of Tolstoy's like to stop the peace process: "They even mention the name of Nagorno-Karabakh, which does not exist either politically or physically, along with Armenia and Azerbaijan. In this statement, it is possible to sense the hysteria, which includes the out-of-control situation, along with old-fashioned imperial cries. Another reason for the increase in such statements is the statement made by the President of the brotherly Republic of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan, at the NATO summit held in Vilnius last week, that he reminded the agreement on the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh in 2025, and that Putin hopes to comply with this agreement, and this situation was taken into account by President Ilham Aliyev."