Microsoft Azure and 365 security logs retention?

Thank you @Vasil Michev for your quick response and clarification.

I guess there is no other way to keep it longer for audit trail purpose of a minimum 12 months?

Afaik no, as it uses its own data store. For most of the event types, you can find the corresponding entries in the Unified audit log, where the retention policy is minimum of 180 days, up to 10 years if you have E5.