STEPNEKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh – A dilapidated old van was pulling over a Dungar outpost when an Azerbaijani soldier got angry over his foggy window, then glanced a few feet away at the Armenian Armenian.
A few days ago, they were on the opposite side of the bitter war. But now a Russian peacekeeper was in charge. He flew the van to the right on the Azerbaijani-administered territory. The Armenians marched to the Armenian-controlled land on the left.
The vicious war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh mountain enclave has turned into a tense war waged by heavily armed Russian troops. For Russia, the long-running provocative, peace-building role in the wider Caucasus region is a switch – a new test and opportunity for a country struggling to maintain its influence in the former Soviet Union.
“They say things will be okay,” said Svetlana Movison, 67, an ethnic Armenian who lived in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepnecart, where she sells dried fruit and honey, slightly out of the Azerbaijani strike. “I believe in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”
It was Mr. Putin, the Russian president, who put an end to the war in the South Caucasus that killed thousands this century. But in the post-Soviet period Russia used it in other regional conflicts, when it intervened militarily in Georgia and Ukraine when it annexed Crimea.
Those tactics, which helped turn those countries into impractical rivals, seem to have gone out of fashion in the Kremlin, which analysts say is increasingly using a subwoofer of soft and hard power.
The mild touch of the Kremlin has been seen in the recent Belarus uprising, where Russia avoided direct intervention and President Alexander G. Lukashenko had only the strongest support, with violence against his opponents provoking the masses.
In negotiations to end the recent war, Mr Putin leaned over the threat of Russian military power, had to make concessions from both sides in the conflict but gained confidence by betraying rival camps. Russia has a mutual-defense alliance with Armenia, but Mr Putin insisted it did not apply to Nagorno-Karabakh. He has maintained close personal ties with the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.
The strategy seems to have paid an immediate dividend, filling the Kremlin with military foothold in the region and firmly welding Armenia into Russia’s sphere of influence, without removing Azerbaijan.
“This is an opportunity to play a role of peace in the classical sense,” said Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Council on Russian International Affairs, a research institute close to the Russian government. “I hope we are seeing a change in the learning process and Russian strategy in the post-Soviet space.”
With Russian support after years of war following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Armenia gained control of the ethnic Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited by ethnic Armenians. Armenian forces also expelled about half a million Azerbaijanis and captured the surrounding districts.
After a quarter century of diplomatic failures, Azerbaijan on 27 September. The invasion began on and forcibly recaptured the area, resulting in a rapid gain thanks to its sophisticated, Israeli- and Turkish-made drones.
In early November, Azerbaijani troops wrested the summit of Mount Shusha from Armenian control, scaled the wooden slide and fought hand-to-hand in close combat on the streets. Nov. By the time, they were drowning Armenian soldiers on their way to nearby Stepnecart, which had a peace-time population of about 20,000,000 ethnic Armenians.
Mr Putin, who had previously tried to broker a ceasefire, then entered. That night Azerbaijan accidentally shot down a Russian helicopter, possibly giving Moscow a reason to intervene. The Russian president delivered an ultimatum to Mr. Aliyev of Azerbaijan, with many briefing on the matter in the country’s capital, Baku: “If the operation in Azerbaijan does not stop after the capture of Shusha, the Russian military will intervene.”
That same night, Azerbaijani sources said a missile of an unknown providence had struck an open area of Baku, causing no injuries, engineering sources said. Some suspect it is a signal from Russia that it is ready to get involved and has the potential to cause significant damage.
Hours later, Mr Putin announced a peace deal, and Mr Aliyev went on television saying all military operations would cease. Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashinyan said she had no choice but to go with him, facing the possibility of further bloodshed on the battlefield.
Mr Aliyev hailed the deal as a victory, except for the Armenian-controlled territory in Nagorno-Karabakh that had returned to Azerbaijan. But he also had to compromise: about 2,000 Russian troops, serving as peacekeepers, would now be stationed on Azerbaijani territory. It was a strategic boon for Russia, which gave Moscow the foothold of provocative forces north of Iran, but also a risk because it put Russian troops in the midst of the world’s most tumultuous ethnic conflicts.
“I don’t know how it will end this time, as there is no good example of Russian peacekeepers in the Caucasus,” said Azad Isazad, who served in Azerbaijan’s defense ministry in the 1990s. “I’m worried about how it will end.”
Almost every Azerbaijani has fond memories of the bloody events of 1990, when Soviet tanks roamed the square in Baku. Since then Russian troops have repeatedly intervened in troubled corners of the Caucasus, often acting as invading troops even under the supervision of peacekeepers. Now that Russia will be important for the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, the long-term position of the region is still unclear.
“Russia does not want to be left alone. They like this stable state, “said Farid Shafiyev, a former diplomat and director of the Center for Government Analysis of International Relations in Baku. “They’re going to interfere.”
But the deal with Mr Putin seemed favorable to Mr Aliyev – only partly because the Azerbaijani army had already been formed and faced fox-time fighting when the management of the opposition ethnic Armenians bore the extra burden., Said one analyst.
“I don’t think Aliyev needs much persuasion,” said Thomas de Wael, a senior Carnegie Europe ally. “It values its relations with Russia.”
For the people of Armen, many of whom have turned their attention to building ties with the West in recent years, the war was a stark reminder that Russia is important to their security. Because Azerbaijan’s main ally, Turkey, considered many Armenians a threat to its very existence, the Armenians have returned to “our basic position: Russia’s reactionary vision as a savior,” said Richard Giragosian, a political analyst based in Yerevan. The capital of Armenia.
It was Russia that sheltered and fought with the Ottoman people against the Ottoman Turks during the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.
Mr Armania is now more firmly enclosed within Russian orbit with limited options and even less space for maneuvers, Mr Giragosian said. “The future security of Nagorno-Karabakh now depends on Russian peacekeepers, giving Moscow the advantage of their lack.”
November. The 9th peace agreement says nothing about the region’s long-term condition, and ethnic Armenians who returned to their homes in buses monitored by Russian security said they could not imagine life in the region without Russian defense.
The road to Stepanekart Military College now leads to Russian command, said Vladik Khachatryan (67), an ethnic Armenian, who said a rumor was circulating around Stepanekart that he hoped for the future.
“Soon, we will get a Russian passport.” “We cannot survive without Russia.”
Maroon Bloodstein covers the bedsheets more than a week after the end of the war, in Room 6 of the Never McClellan Hotel, next to Stepnecart Market. Bersers and towels were hung on the headboards of the last guests in the room pierced by the shrapnel from the Azerbaijani bomb that spread in October.
Echoing other ethnic Armenians in the area, Mr Mikhailya said he saw a clear path to lasting peace: Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Russia. The idea seems very long, but it has been spread over the years by political figures in Russia and Nagorno-Karabakh, though not by Mr Putin.
“What else to do?” Asked Mr. Mikelya, after taking a look at the door of the blown hotel room, the TV ripped off the wall, the trail of blood still hanging on the third floor. “The European Union is not doing anything. Americans are doing nothing. “
Anton Troanovsky reported Carlotta Gail from Stepnecart, Nagorno-Karabakh and Baku, Azerbaijan.
