Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry told local media that seven people linked to a Kremlin-funded media outlet in Baku have been detained after a Monday raid on its office.

The deaths of two ethnic Azerbaijanis amid allegations of torture during a police raid last week in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg has quickly escalated into a diplomatic confrontation highlighting difficulties in Moscow's relations with its former Soviet republics.

In Moscow, Azerbaijan Ambassador Rahman Mustafayev was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry after the raid and notified of "the illegal detention of Russian journalists," according to a ministry spokesperson.