Soufan Center
April 6, 2022

Ukraine Invasion Causes Problems For Moscow In The Caucasus

The leaders of Azerbaijan are apparently seeking to take advantage of Russia’s preoccupation with Ukraine and its poor battlefield performance to build on the country’s 2020 victories in the longstanding territorial dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Following the 2020 clashes, in which Azerbaijan recaptured all territories lost to Armenia in the 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war….

[A]ccording to a Russian Defense Ministry statement, “From March 24 to 25 [2022] the Azerbaijani armed forces, violating the November 9 [2020] trilateral ceasefire agreement, entered the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and established an observation post.” The Ministry also accused Azerbaijan of striking Armenian forces using a TB-2 Bayraktar drone, the weapon supplied by Baku’s main ally, Turkey, which was pivotal to Azerbaijan’s gains in the 2020 battles. Turkey has also supplied the weapon to Ukraine, assisting its unexpectedly strong battlefield performance against the Russian invasion. The Azerbaijani ground advances were accompanied by a disruption in natural gas supplies to Karabakh, which Armenian authorities claimed was an effort by Azerbaijan to intimidate the ethnic Armenian population of that territory.

Armenian authorities, evidently concerned about Russia’s ability to protect its allies in the context of Moscow’s overriding priority in Ukraine, blamed the Russian peacekeepers for the Azerbaijani advance. On March 26, the Armenian Foreign Ministry stated, “We also expect the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh to undertake concrete, visible steps to resolve the situation and prevent new casualties and hostilities.”

Armenia, a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), hosts more than 10,000 Russian soldiers, including a Russian military base, Russian border guards, and the Russian peacekeeping force in the Armenian-controlled areas of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian leaders appear to be concerned that Russia will withdraw some of these forces to replenish its depleted ranks in Ukraine….

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[T]he increased polarization of Georgia’s politics – including new calls by many Georgians to recapture South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Russian control – might complicate Putin’s reported plans to redeploy 1,200 to 2,000 troops from the Russian-occupied Georgian territories to Ukraine. For Georgia’s government, the effort to find middle ground evidently failed when Zelenskyy decided to recall the Ukraine ambassador from Tblisi, claiming Georgia had not done enough to punish Russia for the invasion. The re-ignition of supposedly dormant disputes in the Caucasus has demonstrated that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has had significant unintended consequences that might outlast the war.