2023-09-19 20:10:53
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, September 18, 2023. RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY / VIA REUTERS
On the diplomatic level, the resumption of the Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday September 19 is a disavowal for Moscow. It was under the aegis of Russia that the November 2020 peace agreement was concluded, and it was a Russian “peacekeeping” contingent, 1,960 strong, which was supposed to ensure it. the application, as well as, in theory, security, on the ground.
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Instead, Moscow allowed tensions to persist and was unable, or unwilling, to prevent the Azerbaijani side from organizing the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh for almost a year. Whether for lack of political will or military means – the result of the weakening of its army in the war it is waging in Ukraine – Russia has abandoned its role of arbiter and guarantor. And demonstrates, once again, its inability to ensure stability in what it claims as its backyard, whether in the Caucasus or in Central Asia.
Despite its link with the Russian army, the Telegram channel Rybar, which closely monitors the regional conflict, went so far as to mention, on Tuesday, a “discredit” focused on the Russian mission and Moscow’s role as guarantor of security.
Diplomatic minimum service
The first reactions of Russian diplomacy to this new rise in tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh confirm the position of simple observer to which Moscow confines itself. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs thus “called both parties to the conflict” to stop the conflict, a declaration that looks like a minimum diplomatic service and denies the obvious, namely that Azerbaijan deliberately took the initiative.
On the Kremlin side, spokesperson Dmitri Peskov assured that “the priority is the security of Russian peacekeeping forces”. He was forced to deny rumors that Baku had informed the Russian side in advance of its operation.
Because suspicion has long hovered over the Russian position in the matter: in 2020, Yerevan had already felt abandoned by its traditional Russian ally, who had let Baku demonstrate its military superiority before obtaining a freezing of the conflict – and an agreement of peace which, in order to resolve nothing in substance, made a resumption of hostilities almost inevitable. Added to this are the complex relations with the Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, strong support of Azerbaijan, which Russia spares for subjects more priority in its eyes.
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In recent weeks, the Armenian government has therefore continued to distance itself from Moscow, multiplying symbolic signals – expulsion of Russian journalists, visit to Kiev by the wife of the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinian, humanitarian aid to Ukraine –, and others more meaningful. Among them, the organization of a joint military exercise with the United States or the announcement of ratification by Yerevan of the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, which issued, in March, a mandate to judgment against Vladimir Putin for “war crimes” linked to the deportation of Ukrainian children.
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