
Latest articles from Vladimir Socor

The South Caucasus: New Realities After the Armenia-Azerbaijan War (Part Three)
*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently supplanted the Minsk Group’s triple co-chairmanship (the United States, France, Russia) as mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was Putin, not the Minsk co-chairmanship, who... MORE

The South Caucasus: New Realities After the Armenia-Azerbaijan War (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. Azerbaijan’s successful military action against Armenia’s occupying forces in Karabakh this autumn disproved Western diplomacy’s admonitions about post-Soviet “frozen conflicts” having “no military solutions” but “only political, negotiated solutions” with “no alternatives.” Armenia, however, had imposed its own... MORE

The South Caucasus: New Realities After the Armenia-Azerbaijan War (Part One)
The Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020) has resulted in an Azerbaijani national triumph, a self-inflicted Armenian trauma, geopolitical gains for Russia, another debacle of Western diplomacy, and Turkey’s reassertion as a regional power in the South Caucasus. The significance of Azerbaijan’s military victory... MORE

Russia’s ‘Peacekeeping’ Operation in Karabakh: Foundation of a Russian Protectorate (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. Russian troops deployed to Upper (“Nagorno”) Karabakh exceed by far the number stipulated in the November 9 armistice agreement (see EDM, November 12, 13) due to the additional deployment of Russia’s Humanitarian Response Center personnel. This supplementary manpower... MORE

Russia’s ‘Peacekeeping’ Operation in Karabakh: Foundation of a Russian Protectorate (Part One)
Following its victorious 44-day war (September 27–November 9), Azerbaijan controls approximately one third of the territory of its Upper (“Nagorno”) Karabakh region. The larger part remains under Armenia’s control via the unrecognized republic of Karabakh, although the territory is universally recognized as being a part... MORE

The Minsk Group: Karabakh War’s Diplomatic Casualty (Part Four)
*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Over the past two decades, the main international mechanism for resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Karabakh—the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s... MORE

The Minsk Group: Karabakh War’s Diplomatic Casualty (Part Three)
*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the issue at stake, mediators are expected to be impartial between two parties to a conflict. Yet the Minsk Group’s co-chairing Western governments—those of... MORE

The Minsk Group: Karabakh War’s Diplomatic Casualty (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. The second Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan (September–November 2020) has conclusively discredited the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, the instrument of multilateral diplomacy mandated 28 years ago to mediate a solution to... MORE

The Minsk Group: Karabakh War’s Diplomatic Casualty (Part One)
The 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan (September 27–November 9) has resulted in an Azerbaijani national triumph, a Russian geopolitical and diplomatic victory over the West, and a conclusive discrediting of multilateral diplomacy as an instrument for conflict-resolution in and around the post-Soviet space (see... MORE

How Yerevan Walked Away From the ‘Basic Principles’ of Karabakh Conflict Settlement
Almost from the moment he came to power (2018), Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rejected the “Basic Principles” worked out by the Minsk Group’s co-chairs (the United States, Russia, France) for resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Karabakh. Tabled by the three co-chairing countries in 2009... MORE