How the war in Ukraine is changing the Caucasus

Compared with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the horrors of Hamas’s attack on Israel and the ensuing conflict, the one-day war waged in September 2023 by Azerbaijan against its ethnic-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh may seem like a blip. This final episode in a long cycle of violence between Azerbaijan and Armenia gave Azerbaijan control of a region that has wished to be separate from it since before the Soviet collapse, and prompted the exodus of most of the Armenian population.

But this short war is part of a huge shift that has changed the balance of power in the former Soviet Union and in the world, and that will continue well into 2024. Nagorno-Karabakh played a key role both in the composition of the Soviet Union and in its decomposition. Now it marks what could be the last spasm of the system which has kept the Caucasus, one way or another, connected to Moscow.

A century ago, as the Bolsheviks captured the Caucasus, they placed Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous swath of land rich in Armenian history, into Soviet Azerbaijan as a reward for gaining access to the Azeri oilfields. Seventy years later, as the Soviet Union weakened, Nagorno-Karabakh demanded to be reunited with Soviet Armenia. When the empire collapsed in 1991, a war erupted. Armenia, backed by Russia, gained control over not just Nagorno-Karabakh but also a large surrounding area of Azerbaijan.

Nagorno-Karabakh became a rallying cause for majority-Christian Armenia, a source of trauma and grievance for Azerbaijan and a tool of leverage for Russia. Turkey, a majority-Muslim nation that stood with Azerbaijan, blocked its border with Armenia in 1993, making it more dependent on Russia. In 1998 a more belligerent and thuggish regime, run by Armenian warlords from Nagorno-Karabakh, seized political power in Armenia itself and drew closer to the Kremlin. Russia saw Armenia as an important counterweight to Georgia, which was leaning towards the West.

But in 2018 young Armenians took to the streets and swept away the corrupt, Moscow-backed Karabakh clan. In 2020, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, gave Azerbaijan and Turkey the green light to retake territory around Nagorno-Karabakh. But he also placed troops inside Nagorno-Karabakh as “peacekeepers”, notionally to protect Armenians, but actually to retain influence.

But as he contemplated his war against Ukraine, Mr Putin cared more about his relationship with Turkey and Azerbaijan than about poor, democratic Armenia. He allowed Azerbaijan to cleanse Nagorno-Karabakh of Armenians who had relied on Moscow’s protection.

As well as betraying those Armenians, Russia hopes to exploit their exodus to foment regime change in Armenia itself. Mr Putin is also hoping to keep a foot on the ground by controlling a corridor linking Turkey to mainland Azerbaijan that might cut through Armenia.

Azerbaijan and Turkey hold all the cards, however, and neither wants to make unnecessary concessions to Moscow, particularly when its influence is declining. Nor do they want to side with the West. Instead they want to establish their own power-base in the Caucasus.

One consequence of Russia’s war has been the rise of middle powers such as Turkey. Another has been to weaken its influence in the post-Soviet world. ■

Arkady Ostrovsky, Russia editor, The Economist