Putin Faces Geopolitical Setback in South Caucasus

By Robbie Gramer 

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Robbie here, flying solo as Jack takes some well-deserved time off. Happy Thursday! We’ve got news on lots of stuff today, including what the Pentagon knows about UFOs, so keep on scrolling.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Putin loses ground in the South Caucasus, a blockade on Pentagon nominees in Congress continues, Russia gets caught recruiting mercenaries in Cuba for the war in Ukraine, and more.

There’s a geopolitical shift afoot in the South Caucasus that has U.S. officials (quietly) grinning from ear to ear and their rivals in Moscow fuming.

Armenia is having second thoughts about its longtime partnership with Russia and is beginning to shift in not-so-subtle ways toward the West, signaling an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin in the strategic region.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica this week that his country’s reliance on Russia wasn’t paying off, particularly as Moscow struggles to supply its own military, let alone partnering militaries. “Dependence on just one partner in security matters is a strategic mistake,” he said.

Armenia followed up by announcing its first-ever tranche of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, which Pashinyan’s wife personally handed over during a visit to Kyiv this week.

Then, just to add some salt to the Kremlin’s wounds, Armenia announced a new joint military exercise with the United States, dubbed “Eagle Partner 2023,” to be held in the coming weeks.

Hell hath no fury like a partner scorned. The volte-face comes after mounting frustration in Armenia that Russia has done too little to address the crisis between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave at the heart of a decades-old dispute between the two countries. (Russia deployed “peacekeeping troops” to the region after a deadly conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020.)

But Armenia’s decision also reflects mounting unease in the country over the costs of maintaining its close ties to Russia after its deadly war in Ukraine, four U.S. officials and regional analysts told SitRep.

And that, in turn, has led to an intriguing geopolitical opportunity for Washington and its allies to make inroads in a country that Russia considered one of its last reliable partners, in a region Russia claims to be its own strategically important backyard. (As an interesting sidebar for Washington insiders, the former top U.S. envoy for Ukraine from 2020 to 2022, Kristina Kvien, is now ambassador to Armenia, and the current U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was the previous ambassador to Armenia.)

The taming of the Russian shrew. Armenia, a longtime partner of Moscow’s, has been careful not to openly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has distanced itself from the war and become increasingly wary of the costs of staying in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s orbit.

For years, Armenia prioritized its relationship with Russia, mainly because it was the only game in town for security on Nagorno-Karabakh. But that partnership with Moscow turned out to be a paper tiger during the costly 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan war. Armenia lost that war badly, and the feeling in Yerevan was that Moscow didn’t lift a finger to help until it brokered a costly cease-fire that heavily favored Azerbaijan’s territorial gains.

Azerbaijan gained control of more territory adjacent to the Nagorno-Karabakh region and has launched a new concerted campaign to wrest back the disputed territory from Armenia.

Azerbaijan has in recent months tightened the screws on Nagorno-Karabakh with a full-scale blockade that has pushed the small Armenian enclave into a humanitarian crisis and to the brink of famine. Armenian officials have publicly accused Russian peacekeepers of abetting, or at the least not doing enough to halt, the Azerbaijani blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia’s government isn’t being very subtle with how it feels about Russia now.

A big yikes moment for the Kremlin’s foreign policy. It’s too early to tell whether this represents a permanent shift away from Russia by Armenia, or a temporary one serving as a shot across the bow to Moscow to get its act together.

But either way, Armenia’s diplomatic moves constitute an embarrassing setback for Putin, who is running very short on friends these days after his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed a campaign by Western powers to isolate Moscow on the world stage.

“Of course, such news causes concern, especially in the current situation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in response to the news of the Armenian-U.S. military exercises.

The South Caucasus has immense strategic and symbolic value for Moscow, and limiting the West’s influence there remains a key priority for the Kremlin. (Recall that Russia launched an invasion of Georgia in 2008 as the country pivoted toward the West and NATO, in grim foreshadowing for the war to come in Ukraine.)

In your face. “There is no way to interpret this in any other way but [an] ‘in your face’ signal to Russia,” said Volodymyr Dubovyk, director of the Center for International Studies at Odesa Mechnikov National University in Ukraine.

Armenia’s turn against Russia is an important symbolic win for Ukraine, too, even if the amount of aid it can provide Ukraine is limited, Dubovyk said.

“We do not expect Armenia to take our side openly vis-à-vis Russia,” he said. “But the very fact that one of the most loyal allies of Moscow in the entire post-Soviet space is drifting away is something that is pleasing Kyiv,” he added. “This illustrates how Russia’s invasion backfired terribly. This is important for Ukraine: that Russia’s isolation strengthens.”