The military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is gaining momentum again.

On December 12, Azerbaijan’s environmental activists blocked the only Stepanakert (Khankendi) – Goris highway connecting Armenia with the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in the Lachin Corridor, and on December 13, they completely blocked gas supplies there. Such actions of Azerbaijan fell under the mandate of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Armenia is a member. According to it, russian «peacekeepers» stationed in the region should have unblocked the transit, but they avoided any use of force to stop Azerbaijan’s actions, but only blocked the road on both sides of the protesters, blocking access from Armenia to Stepanakert.

Nagorno-Karabakh – a region in the South Caucasus, from a legal point of view, is the territory of Azerbaijan, however, the US ambassador to Armenia, Lynne Tracy, emphasized several times that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is not defined. The conflict over this region began in 1988 and continued with varying intensity until the fall of 2020, when Azerbaijan and Armenia, mediated by russia, signed an agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Azerbaijan regained control of a large part of Nagorno-Karabakh under the deal, which sparked opposition protests in Yerevan.

❓What does it mean for Azerbaijan?

Azerbaijan uses the closure of the highway as a powerful tool of pressure on Armenia. This is primarily due to economic interest. In the part of Karabakh that is under the control of the russian peacekeeping contingent, there are more than 150 deposits of various minerals, including gold, mercury, copper, tin and zinc. Azerbaijan claims that minerals mined on the territory of Azerbaijan are exported to Armenia through the highway and thus tries to change the situation.

  ❓ What goal does the russian federation pursue and how does it apply to Ukraine?

🔻Why didn’t the russian federation want to fulfill its obligations and defend Armenia?

Firstly, the russian federation cannot allow forceful dispersal of the blockaders, as this will give Azerbaijan grounds to terminate the agreement on the stay of russian «peacekeepers» in Karabakh. And moscow’s current diplomatic or economic capabilities are no longer enough to put pressure on Azerbaijan, which is openly supported by Turkey, which has its own interest in the region. We are talking about the Zangezur Corridor, a road that is currently under the control of Armenia and connects the main part of Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. And since Nakhchivan has a border with Turkey, such a corridor should ensure the uncontrolled movement of goods between Azerbaijan and Turkey. In the case of the operation of the new corridor, security issues will be dealt with by russian security forces, which will provide an opportunity to further strengthen Armenia’s dependence on the russian federation and actually create a new center of the russian Armed Forces there.

In addition, the transport corridor is useful for the russian federation for transporting goods to circumvent international sanctions. The fate of allied Armenia or Karabakh Armenians has become a «bargaining coin» for russia, for which it is much more important to get concessions from Ankara, in particular in matters related to supporting the war against Ukraine.

🔻Secondly, according to US Secretary of State E. Blinken, «russia is artificially exacerbating the situation in Karabakh in order to shift the focus of attention from Ukraine».

However, russia’s calculation on the readiness of Azerbaijan to provide a transport corridor to bypass sanctions may prove to be in vain. After all, Azerbaijan has always supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine and is unlikely to want to make concessions to russia.

On December 10, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan announced the provision of electrical equipment worth more than $800,000 to Ukraine, which caused irritation in the kremlin. And the russian propagandist m.aleksandrov even suggested a missile attack on Azerbaijan.

❓ What was Armenia’s reaction?

Of course, the kremlin’s readiness to «surrender» its ally in exchange for Turkey’s concessions on the issue of the war with Ukraine strengthens anti-russian sentiment in Armenia to such a level that it may soon lead to a correction of Yerevan’s external course, not excluding withdrawal from the CSTO and other organizations created by russia. The Speaker of the Parliament of Armenia, A.Simonyan, also hints at this possibility, who is convinced that «in the future, we will have to consider other options for the security of Nagorno-Karabakh, an alternative to the russian peacekeeping mission». Several thousand people marched through the center of Yerevan with US and Armenian flags and calls for withdrawal from the CSTO.

‼️It is obvious that the aggression against Ukraine led to a significant weakening of russia’s international positions in the regions of the South Caucasus, which the kremlin considered to be its «traditional zones of influence». The kremlin is gradually losing Armenia and Azerbaijan as its outposts in the South Caucasus and is threatening to turn the Karabakh conflict into a «second front» against russia.