Who really won in south Caucasus?
While the conventional wisdom is that Russia allowed Turkey to soften Armenia for the kill, then swooped in and imposed its own terms, talk of Russia’s big win may be somewhat overstated.
Of all Turkey’s recent foreign forays, it was the fastest and most decisive.
Turkey’s intervention in September with military advisers, precision drones and Syrian mercenaries allowed Azerbaijan to wrest back all its territories occupied by Armenia for almost three decades in six bloody weeks. The country’s strongman President Ilham Aliyev has been given a big boost. Turkish hard power has shifted the balance in the south Caucasus, much as it's done in Syria and Libya. Yet Moscow, which sat on its hands through much of the conflict, is seen by many as the real winner. Is it?
Defeat has been cruel and humiliating for Armenia. Its leaders are being assailed by a furious public as traitors. Its lost at least 1,500 soldiers, with an unstated number missing, a sizable portion of its military kit and all the land it hoped to barter for a future deal that would have given Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karabakh the right to self-determination — read: union with Armenia. A nine-point cease-fire deal brokered by the Kremlin that took effect on Tuesday effectively salvaged Armenian control over around 70% of Nagorno-Karabakh proper. Around 2,000 Russian peace keepers will be deployed in and around the enclave, spelling a return of Russian forces to Azerbaijan as well. Russia’s stranglehold over Armenia is near complete, its leverage over Azerbaijan arguably greater, to the extent that it can re-ignite hostilities.
The conventional wisdom is that Russia allowed Turkey to soften Armenia for the kill, then swooped in and imposed its own terms. Russia has said that Turkey will not be part of the peacekeeping forces on the ground, though Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed otherwise today.
