
Latest Articles about South Caucasus

Baku’s Success in Using Turkish Drones Raises Question: Could Ukraine Use Them Against Russia in Crimea?
The Azerbaijani military’s use of Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), purchased from Turkey, played such a prominent role in Baku’s victory over Armenian forces during the Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020) that defense analysts around the world are now focusing on how... 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

Azerbaijan Demands Compensation From Armenia for Destruction of Previously Occupied Territories
On November 11, a day after he signed the trilateral accord with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ending the Second Karabakh War, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan declared that “almost 99 percent of the liberated territories had been destroyed” (Azernews,... 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

Perceptions of Russia in Azerbaijan: Challenge for Moscow’s Peacekeeping Mission
Last September, the Russian Dossier Center investigative project, funded by opposition leader and former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, published a controversial report on the country’s “soft power” policies toward the South Caucasus based on leaks from the Kremlin and Russian special services. The study reveals... 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

Abkhazia Bolsters Linkages With Russia
On November 24, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strictly condemned Sukhumi and Moscow’s joint approval of a program to create a common socio-economic space uniting breakaway Abkhazia and Russia. Tbilisi slammed it as “another illegal step toward the de facto annexation” of its occupied... 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

A ‘Railway War’ Is About to Break out in the South Caucasus
The November 10 declaration that instituted a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia also established new east-west and north-south transportation corridors across this corner of the South Caucasus, thus complicating and intensifying the “railway wars” that have gripped the region at various periods since the turn... MORE