Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Wednesday that he spoke by phone with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, who recently won a military victory in Nagorno-Karabakh, and touched on the issue of “territorial integrity,” AFP reports.

“We confirmed our commitment to the principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Zelenskyy said in Telegram, adding that he also “thanked” Aliyev for the humanitarian aid provided to Kyiv, “especially in the energy sector, in the context of the winter rapprochement.” “.

This was the first telephone conversation between the president of Ukraine and his Azerbaijani counterpart after the latter’s convincing victory over Armenian separatists in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

Following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and subsequent armed conflict in the country’s east with Russian and pro-Russian forces, Ukraine faces a large-scale Russian invasion from 2022 and fears a new bombing campaign against its energy infrastructure aimed at knocking out electricity. this winter

Azerbaijan’s rival Armenia has traditionally been an ally of Russia, but relations between Moscow and Yerevan have soured in recent months, even before the defeat of Nagorno-Karabakh separatists.