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However, the relocation of troops from Russia’s Fifth Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (AMC) as “peacekeepers” in the highly controversial Caucasus region in the early morning of November 10 has no longer helped Armenia avoid a humiliating defeat against his greatest enemy, Azerbaijan.
Russia’s intervention has confirmed the loss of much of Armenia’s territory, which was taken by Armenian forces in 1993. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s opposition to Azerbaijan’s military conquests allows him to withdraw with dignity from an unpleasant regional stalemate. But the solution to your crisis is not perfect. It undermines his efforts to claim scholarly status on how to control the legacy of “frozen” conflicts in the USSR and has negative consequences for Russia’s future geopolitical role in the region.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian signed a joint tripartite declaration on the total cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, the transfer of control of four parts of the territory. controlled by Armenia to Azerbaijan and about 2,000 Russians. (Arcache in Armenian), which would control the contact line and the nearly five-kilometer-wide transport corridor between Karabakh and Armenia. They will carry out a five-year “peacekeeping” mission in the region.
There is no question who will benefit the most from this deal. In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a message from Pasinyan about the signing of the communiqué (“It is not a victory, it is not a defeat until it is recognized,” he wrote on Facebook) sparked riots. The protesters ransacked the prime minister’s residence (according to Pašiniano, “they stole a computer, watch, perfume, driver’s license and other items”), occupied the parliament chamber and beat its president. Pashinian is trying to control the situation, but at the same time urging his followers to “prepare for battle”, and his political future is hanging by his hair.
That storm of discontent against Pashinian, who took control of the Armenian government in 2018 during a peaceful revolution, may be one of the goals Putin has been trying to achieve for a month by delaying military intervention. Over time, it could have crushed the conflict in its infancy by sending, or even seriously threatening to send, Russian troops in September or early October.
During the protests that paved the way, Pashinian tried to persuade Putin that the demands of his supporters to pursue a course of liberal reforms and root out corruption were not related to an anti-Russian uprising that could amount to the Revolution of Dignity of Ukraine in 2014. Since then, Putin has maintained an external friendly relationship with the new Armenian leader. However, it cannot tolerate post-Soviet uprisings in principle, and its hostility towards the cautious liberal reforms of Pashinian and the expanding network of Western NGOs in Armenia was felt in the online messages of its main propagandist, Margarita Simonian, an Armenian.
“Dec in hell, scorned,” he wrote of Ms. Pasinian on Telegram in the early morning of November 10. “A less current state of mind in Yerevan, N, Pashiniano’s Facebook account and my kitchen.”
However, Putin’s decision to wait is likely to conceal much more complex deductions, which has led to the deaths of nearly 5,000 people (by his own estimates).
Early intervention would be seen as open and unilateral support for Armenia. Azerbaijan has a better financial situation and is better armed than Armenia due to its hydrocarbon resources. It currently ranks 64th in the world in terms of military power, while Armenia ranks 111th out of 138 states.
Azerbaijan has suffered a severe blow to Armenia. Since the early days of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, leaders of Russia’s influential and wealthy Armenian diaspora have urged Putin to send troops almost in tears. Furthermore, Armenia’s control of Karabakh lacks international recognition. If Russia had decided to intervene on behalf of Armenia, it would have acted from the shoulder. Such actions would have brought Azerbaijan closer to Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan enthusiastically supported Aliyev throughout the conflict. They would have weakened Azerbaijan’s ties with Russia in the energy field and would eventually push another post-Soviet country out of Russia’s orbit. Furthermore, Russia has an Azerbaijani diaspora that is almost on par with Armenian immigrants in terms of wealth, influence and size (Putin estimates that each has two million inhabitants). Given the past conflicts between Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in Russia over Karabakh, the Russian authorities have decided not to support either of them too openly.
With his belated intervention, Putin sought to maintain a certain Armenian confidence: the deployment of Russian troops saves them from some defeat and the total loss of Karabakh. This is how Pashinian explains his opposition to territorial losses. “The military has told me that we have to stop, that there are problems that cannot be solved, that all the resources dedicated to solving those problems have been exhausted,” he said in a video call to the nation on November 10. But at the same time, he examined Turkey’s growing influence, ensuring that Russian troops play the role of “peacekeepers.”
However, Armenia’s desire to remain in the orbit of Russia, as it has shown so far, will undoubtedly suffer. Unlike Azerbaijan, it is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, Putin’s beloved single market project, as well as a member of the post-Soviet Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenians, both in their home country and in Russia, will question the value of these close ties. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan will play its ties with Turkey to get more concessions from Putin; In his opening remarks, immediately after a deal was reached, Aliyev even offered Turkish “peacekeepers” a place alongside Russia’s “peacekeepers”.
It may have been inevitable, but Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet space suffered. In fact, the most covert consequence of the deal, driven by Russian intervention, is the damage it has done to Putin’s ability to freeze conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Since the collapse of the USSR, Russian power alone, as the world’s second-largest military force, has held countries like Ukraine and Georgia hostage to Russia’s will, despite its apparent desire to secede from its former super powerful host.
And here is an excerpt from Aliyev’s speech to the nation on November 9, which contained something that should scare even Putin: “The people of Azerbaijan have repeatedly heard from mediators and leaders of some international organizations that there are no armed forces.” decision, I said that I did not agree with such thesis, and he was right. I was right! “
The belief that a military solution is possible, that if Russia intervenes, it may do so too late, would upset the balance of all frozen post-Soviet conflicts, beginning with the conflict in Ukraine. I. Aliyev can afford to wait for the Russian troops to leave Karabakh; it did not promise to renounce Azerbaijan’s remaining territorial claims.
Georgians, Ukrainians and Moldovans may also decide that the recovery of the territories torn from their countries by the current frozen conflicts is only a matter of time, the right moment – the Kremlin’s focus on the dramatic events in Belarus at the end of September – and a well-prepared military operation. operation. Azerbaijan’s experience shows that Russia may not act, even in the event of the death of its military personnel: Moscow appears to have accepted an apology from the Azerbaijanis for the accidental shooting down of a Russian military helicopter over Armenia on November 9.
Generally speaking, the status quo in the post-Soviet world depends too much on the ability to see Russia’s military power and its willingness to use it. The alleged solution to the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict shows that such ideas are changing, with unpredictable consequences for Putin and a difficult post-imperial space.
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