April 17, 2024
Russian peacekeepers will be withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Yes, this is true,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to a question about reports of a troop withdrawal in the Azerbaijani media.
Azerbaijan took back Nagorno-Karabakh by force last September, despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers there.
This was followed by a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh
In 1991, Russia became one of the first states to recognize the independence of Armenia, thus beginning diplomatic relations between the two countries, and over the years Yerevan continued to strengthen ties with Moscow.
The first important stage of cooperation was the appearance of Russian border guards in Armenia in 1992, who helped guard the border with Turkey and Iran. A few years later, Russia opened a military base in the Armenian town of Gyumri.
At that time, Russia strengthened its military presence in areas of strategic importance for itself, and Armenia, constantly faced with geopolitical challenges and conflicts in the region, saw the Russian base as a guarantee of its security.
Tension mainly grew in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), not recognized even by Armenia, but which became the cause of wars and conflicts between Yerevan and Baku. This tension eventually resulted in the war of 2020, in which Azerbaijan won, and Russia took “second place.”
Formally, Azerbaijan managed to regain almost all of the lost territories with the exception of the central part of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor leading to Armenia.
It is for this reason that after the end of the war, a Russian peacekeeping contingent appeared in the region, and Russia, it seems, got what it wanted: the conflict was frozen again, and Russian troops were stationed on the territory internationally recognized by Azerbaijan.
Their positions there were precarious and were regulated only by one document – a declaration of a ceasefire by the three parties. That is, formally Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to the deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces in the region, but the statement did not say what exactly the military would do there.
In 2022, Russia had no time for Karabakh – President Vladimir Putin unleashed a full-scale war against Ukraine and threw all his forces there.
As a result, the role of Azerbaijan and its main ally, Turkey, has noticeably increased for Moscow. After Russia was imposed with sanctions, it could not lose an important ally in their circumvention in the person of Ankara, which contributed to parallel imports.
In September 2023, during a one-day war, Russia finally demonstrated that it was not ready to enter into conflict with Baku – even despite the death of its own peacekeepers.
Symbolic day for Aliyev
Famil Ismailov, editor of the BBC Russian Service
The departure of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh means that the final point has been reached in the process of Azerbaijan returning sovereignty over the rebellious region.
They arrived in Karabakh on November 10, 2020 – as soon as Aliyev, Pashinyan and Putin agreed on a document on the cessation of hostilities.
Under the agreement, Armenian forces pledged to transfer the areas they held to Azerbaijani control, and Russian peacekeepers took under their protection the Armenian population of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and under their control the Lachin corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenian territory.
The fact that the Russian contingent flew into the region almost immediately could indicate a pre-planned transfer. In those days, one of the high-ranking officials of Azerbaijan said in a private conversation: “They made us an offer that we could not refuse.”
The peacekeepers were supposed to spend five years in Karabakh; in the future, Azerbaijan could extend their mandate. Azerbaijan regained full control over Karabakh much earlier, and the Russian military did not prove to be an obstacle to this plan.
The presence of a Russian military base in Armenia also had no impact on the course of the war for Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia: neither in the 44-day war of 2020, nor in the operation to finally control Karabakh in September 2023, during which four Russians were killed military personnel.
In 1992, the leadership of Azerbaijan had the opportunity to agree with the Soviet military on the suppression of the Armenian resistance in Karabakh by the forces of the 104th Airborne Assault Division stationed in Ganja, an Azerbaijani official familiar with the negotiations told me.
The then President of Azerbaijan, leader of the Popular Front Abulfaz Elchibey demanded the withdrawal of the Soviet army from the territory of the country, and no agreement could be reached. The units left Azerbaijan, but as a result, Armenian forces seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh and later seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, and Abulfaz Elchibey was forced to leave his post. As a result, Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president of the country, became the leader of Azerbaijan.
Undoubtedly, for Ilham Aliyev, as well as for millions of his compatriots, today will become symbolic.
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