“We should consider the Russian proactivity in Azerbaijan through the global geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West, where each of the sides of the conflict will try to benefit from the opportunities Azerbaijan has to offer in their own interests”, says the analyst.

He insists that Russia is not the only party interested in Azerbaijan.

“Along the proactivity of the Russian side, we are also considering the growing dynamics of visits to Baku by specialists on South Caucasus from the US State Department. The fact that Ushakov, aide to the Russian President, announced the meeting of the Russian and Azerbaijani leaders in late September in Baku after their rather fruitful meeting in Sochi on the first of September only proves the existence of pending issues, which require prompt interaction. The necessity of additional consultations also arise from the situation in Syria and the importance of Azerbaijan’s geography in the existing Iranian-Russian alliance”, he believes.

The expert also underlined that Kremlin is especially concerned with the revolution in Armenia and a certain shift of the political focus of Yerevan towards the West, which requires urgent actions from Moscow in order to preserve its geopolitical influence and the power balance in South Caucasus.

“A well-tested and tried mechanism of preserving the Russian influence in the region is its mediating role in conflicts, particularly the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The sensitivity of the Karabakh problem in the public conscience of Armenians and Azerbaijani requires to keep the format of negotiations classified and they will remain in a closed regime. Moscow has its own action plan and we can now univocally assert that preserving the status-quo in Karabakh does not correspond to interests of Russia and all the maneuvers of the new Armenian PM, Pashinyan, are a treat to Russian interests in the region,” Nagiyev says.

“The populist and controversial announcements made by the Armenian Prime Minister after the meeting on the seventh of September in Kremlin with President Putin, which he called “an efficient talk”, and the relations between Russia and Armenia “brilliant”, speak of the rigid requirements put forward by the Russian leader. Pashinyan in Moscow received an “offer”, which he does not have a chance to refuse. Otherwise we will be soon witnessing a new “Armenian revolution”, the analyst noted.

He believes a new setup of interests is shaping in the region, where the Kremlin now considers the regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a connecting element to strengthen its geopolitical influence in the South Caucasus. “President Putin’s planned trip to Baku is a confirmation of high sensitivity of the Russian foreign policy towards processes in South Caucasus,” Nagiyev concluded.

More about: Russia   Armenia   Azerbaijan