The Caucasus used to mark the edge of the Tsarist empire, a place of tribal feuds, high-flying birds of prey, of war and exile. Now, as the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave comes ablaze again, as thousands of Armenians take flight from the forces of Azerbaijan, this mountainous region seems to embody the core weakness of its supposed protector, President Putin.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenians, though it is recognised as being legally part of Azerbaijan. The tensions never disappeared: there was a war in the early 1990s and a second flare-up in 2020 when Azerbaijan used Turkish drones to immobilise Armenia’s Russian-supplied tank army. The Kremlin brokered an armistice and sent in 2,200 Russian peacekeepers.
But
the present clash has left the Armenians bitterly disappointed with Moscow. The peacekeepers did little; there seemed to Armenians to be a singular lack of interest in their plight. Demonstrations outside the Russian embassy in Yerevan denounce Mr Putin. Armenians openly speculate that the Russian leader is content to sit back cynically and wait for local anger to turn against the country’s prime minister, the pro-western Nikol Pashinyan. And they calculate that Moscow, entangled in a long, costly war with Ukraine, has no desire to engage in another war on its periphery.
The lesson for Russia’s erstwhile allies is clear: as long as it is engaged in its bloody campaign against Kyiv, it does not have the energy or bandwidth to deter attack elsewhere. If there ever was a Pax Russica it has shrivelled and died in the late Putin era. Mr Putin, viewed from the Russian periphery, is an increasingly unimpressive peacekeeper.
The leadership of Azerbaijan made what must have seemed a rational decision on the basis of observable facts. Mr Putin entertaining North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, a global pariah, in the hope of gaining more artillery shells? A sure indicator that the Russian war machine is faltering. The sudden absence of Russian threats to use tactical nuclear weapons? Almost certainly the result of Chinese displeasure. So much for the limitless friendship. The mutiny of the Wagner group, the sacking of Russian generals? Unmistakable signs of an internal power struggle. Sporadic Ukrainian attacks on Russian airfields and other deep targets? Disturbing proof of Russian military limitations.
Russia, in other words, is anything but a powerful ally. Two senior US officials, including the head of USAID, Samantha Power, have already landed in Armenia. The point of their mission, apart from assessing the immediate needs of 120,000 ethnic Armenians on the move, was to demonstrate Russia’s limitations as an ally. Under the Russian-led ceasefire the ethnic Armenians of Karabakh agreed after only a day of furious fighting to lay down arms and enter “reintegration” talks with Baku. Azerbaijan says it will provide constitutional protection to ethnic Armenians there who accept its control. But the Armenian government is unlikely to accept those terms.
Mr Putin’s attention has wandered and his lack of loyalty to neighbours and traditional allies like Armenia will be rewarded in kind. The outcome, say Armenian analysts, could be a breakdown in talks and a new broader war, dragging in Turkey, Iran and perhaps even Russia by the end of next month . Wars that kick off in the Caucasus rarely stay in the mountains for long.