The truce in Nagorno-Karabakh

A changing truce

After midnight on November 10, Armenia’s prime minister and the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia signed a joint declaration agreeing to end hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh and deploy Russian peacekeepers to the region. The Russian state news agency Sputnik Armenia was the first to publish a copy of the agreement “without changes or abridgments”; the Kremlin did not share its copy of the truce until midday. The two texts are different, however. Here is what changed.

One truce, two reactions

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have agreed to a Kremlin-brokered truce in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region that includes the deployment of almost 2,000 Russian peacekeepers. Prime Minister Pashinyan says he accepted the settlement after repeated pleas from his military high command, arguing that Armenia had no alternative but to agree to the terms. In a national address, President Aliyev described the truce as Armenia’s military surrender. The Kremlin, meanwhile, has defended the settlement as “a victory for the peoples of two countries, Azerbaijan and Armenia.” Immediately after the truce was announced, celebrations broke out in Azerbaijan, while an angry mob stormed the House of Government in Yerevan and demanded Pashinyan’s resignation.

Here’s what Russia has pledged (and risked) with peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh

On November 10, the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia signed a joint statement announcing an end to armed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region in Azerbaijan where a war has raged and simmered since the early 1990s. Under the agreement, Russia also pledged almost 2,000 peacekeepers on the ground in the conflict zone. Immediately after the truce was announced, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a national address that Turkish peacekeepers will also play a role in the settlement. “There will be a joint peacekeeping mission by Russia and Turkey. It’s a new format,” Aliyev said in his speech.

Meduza answers seven basic questions about Russia’s peacekeeping operations.

‘This is in Azerbaijan, not Karabakh’

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov fielded several questions about the Moscow-brokered truce in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Peskov described the settlement as a victory for both the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, brushing aside concerns that Baku and its allies in Turkey in fact defeated Yerevan. He also addressed talk about Turkish peacekeepers, the political fallout for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the future status of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic itself.

Opinion and analysis

Russia just showed hostile neighbors its weakness

In an op-ed for Novaya Gazeta, columnist Yulia Latynina argues that Russia waited until Nagorno-Karabakh was on the brink of total defeat before brokering a truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan because the Kremlin wanted to make the settlement as costly as possible for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, hoping his capitulation would weaken him as Russia’s routing of Georgia weakened Mikheil Saakashvili in 2008.

Latynina says Moscow foolishly believed it could undermine Pashinyan without harming Armenia itself, all while preserving the foundations of the conflict that fuels arms sales to both Yerevan and Baku. Instead, she explains, Russia has demonstrated its unwillingness to defend itself against hostile neighbors (for example, the non-reaction to a Russian helicopter downed by Azerbaijani fire) and emboldened its enemies (namely, “Islamic religious fanaticism” — Latynina’s main bugaboo) by showing that the Kremlin will give dictators like Ilham Aliyev and Recep Erdoğan everything they want.

A win for Russia and for Turkey, too

In an op-ed for Novaya Gazeta, military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer welcomes the truce in Nagorno-Karabakh, though he says the region’s future remains unclear. Armenia has obviously suffered a major setback in defeat, but victory will weaken Azerbaijan, Felgenhauer explains, by saddling the nation with implementing its “grand operation to populate territories in Karabakh.” With Russian troops in the region, the Kremlin’s influence will expand, but so will Turkey’s reach. Just how Moscow and Ankara exercise this new authority will depend on the nature of the “joint peacekeeping” ahead, says Felgenhauer.

Teaming up with Turkey in the Caucasus against the West

In an article for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, editor Svetlana Gamova spoke to two foreign policy experts, Alexander Rahr and Mykhailo Pohrebynsky, about the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. Rahr says the truce is a potential opportunity for Russia to build better ties with Turkey as joint peacekeepers in the region. He acknowledges that Moscow has “allowed Ankara into the Caucasus,” but says the decision effectively blocks NATO’s influence in the conflict (given that Turkey, a NATO member, is not acting under the alliance’s aegis). Whatever cooperation the two regional powers can manage in Karabakh, Rahr warns that Azerbaijan won’t likely accept Russian protection of Karabakh after five years, which is why Aliyev insists now on Turkish mediation. According to Rahr, the Kremlin might nevertheless pursue this relationship with Turkey given expectations that Joe Biden’s White House will likely re-engage in Europe.

Pohrebynsky, the director of the Center of Political and Conflict Studies in Kyiv, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that he doesn’t believe Russia will try to apply the peacekeeping approach it adopted in Karabakh to Ukraine’s separatist conflict in the Donbas, arguing that it would never get Kyiv’s endorsement or the support of the United States. Moscow would annex the territory outright before bothering with peacekeepers, says Pohrebynsky.

Notes from social media

Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov writes on Facebook that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan justifiably agreed to a difficult surrender in order to save lives and avoid a “war to the last man standing.” Gudkov praises Pashinyan for spending all his political capital on a just cause. Dictators like Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, Gudkov says, would never make such sacrifices.

On Facebook, pundit Andrey Nikulin argues that Armenia’s fight against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh was already hopeless by the time of Pashinyan’s surrender, though not everyone in Yerevan realizes it. Baku’s preponderance of power, backed by its superior numbers and bigger economy, cemented its military victory well in advance. President Aliyev’s consent to Russian peacekeepers, moreover, undermines claims that he seeks the “genocide” of Karabakh Armenians. Vladimir Putin opened the door to greater Turkish influence in Azerbaijan by “getting entangled in his own game,” spending two decades fueling the Karabakh conflict with arms sales. Armenia, meanwhile, will now turn inevitably toward the West, remembering how Moscow abandoned the country just to spite Pashinyan. Both Yerevan and Baku will remain mobilized, wasting resources on tanks that could be used for “ambulances and trolleys.”

On Telegram, political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov says the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh is likely only temporary. Russia’s role in the region is changing, but Moscow remains an important player, despite Turkey’s rising influence, says Lukyanov. Baku and Ankara probably plan to use Armenia’s future attempts to “take revenge” as an excuse to renew the war and pursue “phase two.” With Joe Biden at the helm in Washington, the U.S. will show more interest in the conflict, but the White House will have to wrap its head around the new alignment of forces, come Biden’s inauguration.