Yerevan no longer looks towards Moscow. The Armenian Prime Minister announced, this Sunday, September 24, a change of alliance, turning his back on Russia after the invasion of Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan and thus reshuffling the cards of Muscovite influence in the Caucasus.
In a televised speech, Nikol Pashinian used harsh words, describing his country’s current alliances as “ineffective”. No need for subtitles to understand that he was referring to relations with Moscow inherited from the time when Armenia was part of the Soviet Union. He accuses Russia of inaction on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. “Armenia has never renounced its obligations or betrayed its allies. But the analysis of the situation shows that the security systems and allies on whom we have long relied have set themselves the task of showing our vulnerability and l “the incapacity of the Armenian people to have an independent state”, he added.
As a reminder, Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region with an Armenian majority located in Azerbaijan. The latter and Armenia have been fighting over control for decades. The region was the scene of two wars, in the early 1990s and then in the fall of 2020. Tuesday, September 19, Baku launched a military operation there, after the death of four police officers and two Azerbaijani civilians, killed by mines. . The fighting resulted in at least 200 deaths and 400 injuries on the Armenian side, according to the separatists, and two victims on the Azerbaijani side. The separatists agreed to lay down their arms and begin negotiations on the reintegration of this territory into Azerbaijan. A historic turning point, which seals Baku’s victory for control of this small region of the South Caucasus.
The alliance with Russia, “a strategic error”
For his part, the Armenian head of state finds himself destabilized by this invasion of Nagorno Karabakh, against which he did not engage the Armenian army, leaving the separatists of this region populated mainly by Armenians alone in the face of the firepower of Baku. Enough to provoke the anger of part of the population: a new demonstration in the capital Yerevan is planned for this Sunday afternoon to denounce its management of the crisis and its policy of military non-intervention. Thus, blaming Moscow would allow the Armenian head of state to create a diversion by pointing the finger at a common enemy. By accusing the approximately 2,000 Russian peacekeepers present in Karabakh of not doing their job, Nikol Pashinian hopes to remobilize around him.
For several months, the Armenian Prime Minister has not been kind to Russia. “Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine means that Armenia can no longer rely on Moscow as a guarantor of its security, even as fears grow of a return to open conflict with Azerbaijan,” he said. he declared on September 13 in an interview with the American media Politico. Calling on the great protector – Russia in the case of Armenia – every time a conflict broke out was simply unsustainable, he argued. On September 1st, Nikol Pashinian assumed, in the Italian daily La Repubblica this time, having made a “strategic error” by entrusting its security to Russia.
Until then, Russia was central in this conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan: it was Russia, asserting its role as a regional power, which had sponsored the ceasefire agreement which put an end to previous hostilities. in 2020. Moscow had deployed Russian peacekeepers there, who nevertheless did not prevent the lightning invasion of Nagorno Karabakh by Baku’s troops this week. “There is a geopolitical game there. A small Russian peacekeeping force was created in Karabakh in 2020” by Russia “which has always oscillated and manipulated the two camps”, underlines Thomas de Waal, of the Carnegie Europe center , in an analysis published this week.
Azerbaijan gains importance in Moscow’s eyes
But with the attack launched by Azerbaijan, “the impression that there had been an agreement between Moscow and Baku was reinforced”, he adds, with Russia punishing Nikol Pashinian for his “pro-leaning”. Western” increasingly marked. Indeed, Armenia has moved closer to the West and more particularly to Washington since the war in 2020. This month, Armenia even conducted military exercises with the United States, to the great dismay of the Russians. For specialist Marc Semo, “it is Russia’s choice to let go of Armenia”, he said on the set of France 24.
Azerbaijan, for its part, is gaining importance in the eyes of Moscow, being bordered by Iran with which Russia maintains privileged exchanges. Furthermore, ties between Russia and Turkey have also strengthened since the war in Ukraine. However, Ankara is a faithful ally of Baku. Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev on Monday in the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan.
However, if Armenia distances itself from Russia, it also distances itself from Iran. According to the online newspaper Vzgliadtaken back by International mail, On the night of September 20, the Armenian generals twice refused to discuss with Iranian general Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, who contacted them. The site does not hesitate to write: “Thus, Yerevan refused the helping hand of Russia and Iran.” But according to Russian media, recent events point above all to the loss of Moscow influence in the region. “Apart from the war of Chechnya“, it is the first time, in the post-Soviet space, that a separatist conflict has been put to an end by force”, notes Oleg Ignatov, expert at the International Crisis Group, in the business daily RBK.
If it is in trouble, will the Russian-Armenian alliance break up? For the moment, Armenia is still part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance headed by Russia. Born in 2002, it brings together several former Soviet republics around Russia: Armenia, Belarus but also, in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. And Armenia hosts a Russian base, in Gioumri, which has several thousand soldiers.
With his televised intervention this Sunday, “Pashinian is deliberately aggravating tensions with Russia. It is more a question of blackmail than a change of foreign policy line. He openly says to Russia: ‘if you do not keep not the Armenians in Karabakh, I will leave the CSTO'”, deciphers independent Armenian analyst Beniamin Matevossian, interviewed by AFP. The Russian-Armenian relationship would no longer be hanging by a thread, at the risk of upsetting the geopolitical balance of the region.