The first meeting between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia after their six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh last year has clearly shown that Russia is rebuilding its leadership in the Caucasus, leaving little room for Turkey, which helped Azerbaijan prevail on the battlefield.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Jan. 11, two months after he brokered a cease-fire deal to end the clashes. Aliyev and Pashinyan, who only exchanged cold greetings without shaking hands, were seated wide apart on the same side of an oval table as Putin sat opposite them in the manner of a problem-solving boss raining instructions.

In Turkey, social media was awash with comments questioning the absence of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who claims a role both “in the field and at the table” in regional conflicts. Such questions, however, are futile, as the history and nature of conflicts in the Caucasus as well as Armenia’s reliance on Russia and Azerbaijan’s political and economic bonds with it accord Moscow an exceptional role in any confrontation or peacemaking in the region. Yerevan rejects Turkey’s involvement in the post-war process, but Moscow, too, is keeping Turkey away, irked by its ambitions in Russian domains of influence.

For the same reason, Putin seeks to diminish the role of the United States and France, Russia’s fellow co-chairs of the so-called Minsk Group created in the 1990s to lead settlement efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh. The sidelining of the two Western powers is a source of concern for Armenia but a welcome development for Azerbaijan and Turkey. Prospective talks on a lasting solution in Nagorno-Karabakh might shift to the Minsk framework eventually, but things remain uncertain at present.