Five minutes for fees

Russian peacekeepers ahead of schedule left Nagorno -Karabakh. Novyevropa tells how Moscow has lost influence in the region and how it is due to the invasion of Ukraine

On April 16, the Azerbaijani media disseminated information about the beginning of the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeeping contingent (RMK) from Nagorno -Karabakh. And already on April 17, these data were confirmed by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the contingent’s mandate expired only in 2025 and initially signed with the possibility of extension. The causes and consequences of the early withdrawal of the RMK from Karabakh specifically for Novo-Europe were understood by political analyst Tigran Grigoryan.

The deployment of RMK in Nagorno -Karabakh in November 2020 was the last act of the Second Karabakh war, in which Azerbaijan won a convincing military victory. However, the victory of Baku did not lead to the achievement of all political goals-the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, although cut within the borders, continued its existence with all state institutions, including self-defense forces.

Moreover, the placement of a peacekeeping mission has become a new factor that was absent in the conflict zone in the previous three decades. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict differed from other territorial disputes in that from the end of the first war in 1994 to the beginning of the second in 2020, the fragile ceasefire kept without external military presence, despite the fact that Moscow was the main mediator in the negotiations between Baku and Yerevan.

Thus, the main strategic task of Baku after 2020 was the leveling of the difference between the military and political results of the Second Karabakh war. The conclusion of the RMK from the territory of Nagorno -Karabakh has become the most important element of this long -term strategy of Azerbaijan.

How long the peacekeepers had to remain in the region, stipulated in the Kremlin’s statement about the ceasefire of November 9, 2020: “The deadline for the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation is 5 years with automatic extension for the next 5-year periods, if none of the parties will declare 6 months before the expiration of the term of intention to stop the application of this provision.”

Immediately after the deployment of the contingent, in December 2020, Moscow initiated negotiations with Baku and Yerevan to sign the mandate of the peacekeeping mission: the parties had to agree on the framework of the liability of peacekeepers “on Earth”. However, Baku refused to sign both the first and second draft of the document. And since the deployment of peacekeepers, the Azerbaijani officials and departments have publicly emphasized that the contingent is “temporarily deployed in Azerbaijan”. The words of the country's president Ilham Aliyev after the withdrawal of the RMK from the region were confirmed by this:

“When signing a tripartite statement, the position of Azerbaijan was that if the scope of the RMK is not indicated, then there will be no tripartite statement, the war will continue.”

But before the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, few people, including Baku, could have assumed that the peacekeeping mission could leave Nagornoi Karabakh until 2025. It was after the full -scale invasion of Russia to Ukraine that the alignment of forces in the South Caucasus has changed dramatically. Military operations on the Ukrainian front weakened the influence of Moscow in the region and increased Russia's dependence on Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Just two days before the full -scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev signed the declaration of interaction, increasing the status of relations between the two countries to allied.

In addition, after February 24, in order to reorient its trade in Asian markets, Moscow initiated negotiations on the North -South transport corridor, taking on the obligation to invest $ 1.5 billion in the development of infrastructure as part of this project. And in September 2022, Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran signed a declaration of the development of the corridor.

What is this corridor

“North - South” is a transport corridor between Russia, India, Iran and neighboring countries (in total 11 countries). Investments in the project until 2030 will amount to 280 billion rubles. Experts suggest that the launch of the route will help Russia overcome the consequences of sanctions restrictions and provide access to European markets. “<...> The needs of consignors dictate to us the need to build new sections of this road so that we can increase cargo transportation along it and thereby provide a unique transport path from the north to the Indian Ocean,” Ilham Aliyev said at a bilateral meeting in Moscow.

The aforementioned two trends, which are a direct consequence of the Russian-Ukrainian war, created a power vacuum in the region. Baku began to use it to achieve strategic goals. A month after the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, Azerbaijan began the escalation of the conflict in Nagorno -Karabakh: in March 2022, the Azerbaijani armed forces took control of the village of Parukh and a nearby strategic height. Russian peacekeepers not only could not prevent a clash or force the Azerbaijani side to take their troops to their original positions, but also put pressure on the Nagorno -Karabakh self -defense forces before the escalation began, so that they agreed to the withdrawal of troops, which later turned out to be one -sided.

The next escalation, initiated by Azerbaijan, occurred in early August 2022. This time Azerbaijani units took control of the strategic height in the Lachinsky corridor, which connected the unrecognized republic with Armenia, and were able to force the Armenian side ahead of time (which was indicated in the statement of the ceasefire of November 9) to change the corridor route. During this escalation, peacekeepers also played the role of statists and passive couriers between the parties.

The use of power vacuum in the region from Baku soon manifested itself on the interstate border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In September 2022, immediately after Russia retreat in the Kharkov direction, Azerbaijan attacked the sovereign territory of Armenia, firing large cities in the south of the country for several days. According to the results of September battles, Azerbaijan occupied part of the sovereign territory of Armenia in the south and forced Yerevan to make political concessions in the negotiation process.

Armenia did not wait for any subject reaction from Russia to the September escalation. So, on October 6, 2022, Yerevan and Baku participated in a four-sided meeting in Prague and accepted a joint statement : the parties agreed to take the Alma-Ata declaration of 1991 (on the creation of the CIS) as a basis for the delimitation process. The signatures recognized the administrative borders between the Union republics at the time of the collapse of the USSR as interstate borders, and Yerevan pledged at the end of the process to recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. Moscow still uses the Prague statement to justify inaction in Nagorno -Karabakh, claiming that this step of Yerevan predetermined the further course of events.

A few months after the September escalation and the adoption of the Prague statement, the final stage of the Azerbaijani strategy for the abolition of the NKR and the ethnic cleaning of the local Armenian population began. On December 12, 2022, a group of Azerbaijani "eco -activists" blocked the Lachinsky corridor, starting a nine -month blockade of Nagorno -Karabakh.

Both before the start of the blockade, and after Azerbaijan, he stained the red lines of Russia on Earth in stages. As a result, it turned out that no red lines exist.

Moscow, throughout the blockade of Nagorno -Karabakh, did not take any real steps to pressure on Baku, despite the fact that, upon the application for the ceasefire of November 9, the Lachinsky corridor was supposed to be under the control of the peacekeeping contingent.

One of the most characteristic episodes of the blockade occurred in April 2023, when Baku decided to abandon the services of “eco -activists” and established his official checkpoint in the Lachinsky corridor. The installation of the checkpoint was carried out in the presence of peacekeepers and next to one of their fortified points.

On September 19, 2023, after nine months of the blockade, when the republic was already experiencing a serious humanitarian catastrophe, Azerbaijan began a military operation in Nagorno -Karabakh. As a result of one -day battles, the leadership of the NKR accepted all the conditions of Baku. Over the next days, almost the entire population of Nagorno -Karabakh was forced to hastily leave the region. The peacekeeping contingent, the main role of which was the prevention of great bloodshed, lost its main task. Based on the evidence of eyewitnesses and statements by Maria Zakharova, the peacekeepers were informed about the offensive and "a few minutes before the start of hostilities left their positions in some areas." As a result of this attack, Auterbaijan killed 223 people, of which five minors. 20 people disappeared, among whom were civilians.

Then six Russian peacekeepers were killed , the investigation of the case continues to this day. Baku took responsibility for their death and promised to pay compensation to families. However, this did not change the overall picture and did not cause a tough reaction from Moscow. And in the plot of the first channel about the withdrawal of RMK, they did not remember this incident at all.

After the events of September 2023, as a result of which there was no Armenian population in the Nagorno -Karabakh, the fate of the location of the RMK in the region was a foregone conclusion. Despite the fact that different Russian officials tried to come up with some new functions for peacekeepers in empty Karabakh, from the outside all these attempts looked tragicomic.

So, two months ago, the Russian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mikhail Evdokimov said that the function of peacekeepers has changed and that they "together with the Azerbaijani forces are patroling the territory, the protection of buildings and cultural structures." Evdokimov in the same interview noted that negotiations are underway on the fate of the contingent with the Azerbaijani side. In early April, it was already stated that peacekeepers would be engaged in clearance in Nagorno -Karabakh.

Baku considered the liquidation of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the withdrawal of RMK from the region with strategic tasks. And Azerbaijan achieved his goals much earlier than anyone could expect largely because the beginning of the war in Ukraine changed the alignment of forces in the South Caucasus and became a trigger for a chain of fateful events. Nevertheless, for most observers, the premature withdrawal of RMK from Nagorno -Karabakh was a surprise. Obviously, this decision was the result of an agreement between Baku and Moscow, other aspects of which can become known in the near future.

“Allied relations” with Azerbaijan for Russia were more important than fulfilling their obligations, which caused Fiasco in Nagorno -Karabakh. In Moscow, it is believed that, despite this failure, which significantly reduced the influence and presence of Russia in the South Caucasus, it will be able to restore its position after the end of the Ukrainian war. The realism of such plans is doubtful. With any development of events on the Ukrainian front for Moscow, it will archblorely restore the level of influence in the region that existed until recently.