For over 150 years, Russia ruled the South Caucasus, the mountainous region between Europe and Asia, through exploitation, domination and a colonialist divide-and-conquer policy. Moscow’s most recent pressure-point has been the conflict over the Armenia-backed separatist Karabakh, where Russia both fueled the conflict and acted as a mediator.
Now, Armenia and Azerbaijan are setting clear boundaries — and America has a historic opening to help them.
Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan have been in a freefall after Russian police allegedly tortured to death two Azerbaijani citizens amid a greater crackdown on ethnic Azerbaijani in the industrial city of Yekaterinburg. Azerbaijan authorities said the killings were “ethnically motivated,” and they likely were.
In response, Azerbaijan arrested the chief and managing editors of the Russian state media outlet Sputnik, accusing them of working with Russian intelligence. Baku then arrested eight more Russian citizens on charges of drug trafficking and cybercrime.
This latest escalation comes amid tensions between the two countries that have simmered since December, when Moscow shot down an Azerbaijani civilian plane, killing 38. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev demanded a public apology and compensation, but Moscow initially ignored him. This set in motion a spiraling escalation that included the ordered closing of Russian state media and cultural centers in Azerbaijan and a massive cyberattack against Azerbaijani state media.
For several years, a conflict has also been brewing in neighboring Armenia as well. Right before the killing of the two Azerbaijanis, Armenia ditched a meeting of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, while simultaneously announcing it was entering discussions over defense cooperation with the European Union. Although Yerevan still depends on Russia economically and militarily, it has taken many steps to diversify relations, including with Iran, India and others.
Such open defiance from both countries would have been unimaginable just five years ago. However, two events opened the door for the fall of Russian influence in the South Caucasus: the retaking of Karabakh by Azerbaijan and the war in Ukraine.
For almost 30 years, Russia used the conflict over the Armenia-backed separatist territory of Karabakh to maintain leverage over both countries. Moscow used similar strategies in the post-Soviet republics of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia by using the support for separatism to pressure all three. But in the Karabakh, Russia pressured both Armenia and Azerbaijan simultaneously.
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Joseph Epstein is director of the Turan Research Center, a nonpartisan research program at the Yorktown Institute focused on the Turkic and Persian worlds.
