Your forget about 15 million azerbaijanis in Iran. Yep, this is kinda fun that in Iran living more azerbaijanis than in Azerbaijan.
So we have 15 + 8-10 + 2 = 25-27 million
The number of azerbaijanis in Russia is even less than 10 %
Firstly, there are 25-35 million Azerbaijanis in Iran. Secondly, my opponent compared the Azerbaijanis in Russia with their number in Azerbaijan.
After the fall of the Parthian kingdom as a result of the Arab conquests, ethnic Iranians were not in power until Pahlavi came to power, before him the Turks (including Azerbaijanis) owned power in Iran.