The weak influence of Russia in the former USSR

The public spat between Russia and Armenia, one of its closest allies, deepens doubts about Moscow's ability to maintain and project power across parts of the former Soviet Union as it focuses on waging war in Ukraine.

Armenia is home to a Russian military base that includes garrisons at two locations and an air base, and is Moscow's only strategic ally in the restive South Caucasus, a region crisscrossed by oil and gas pipelines.

Relations have warmed and cooled for years, but in recent weeks Armenia has effectively announced that it has no confidence in Russia's ability to protect it under the defense pact and has been looking for other partners as tensions escalate with neighboring Azerbaijan, which it lost to in a short war in 2020. Reuters.

Russia's absence could open the door for other players - whether Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, China or the West - to try to take its place in the South Caucasus or other former Soviet territories it openly claims as its sphere of influence, it said. in the analysis.

"Russia's poor performance in Ukraine has forced former clients to look for other, more reliable protectors," said Anthony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Russia.

“I'm sure they (the Russians) will do everything they can to convince others (especially Syria) of their continued support.

Armenia says, for example, that Russia cannot provide the weapons it traditionally supplies because it needs them for Ukraine, so Yerevan has turned to India instead.

While flatly refusing to allow the Russian-led military bloc to hold maneuvers on Armenian soil, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan this week approved a rare joint exercise with the United States, Ukraine's biggest backer.

"Russia is now divided and does not want to get involved in any other problem or crisis than Ukraine," said Olesya Vartanyan, South Caucasus analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), a conflict prevention organization.

"Russian officials tell their Armenian counterparts: "Please wait, we are busy with the war in Ukraine".

She questioned what resources Moscow has to solve other problems if it is unable to repair relations with Armenia, its only strategic partner in the region.

Relations with energy-rich Kazakhstan also cooled, which refused to support Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine. Moldova has had to deal with a huge influx of refugees from the war in Ukraine and has a pro-Western government that is trying to reduce its dependence on Moscow.

The situation in Georgia, where a fifth of the territory is held by Russian troops supporting the breakaway territories after the 2008 war, is more nuanced. The authorities make some decisions that are favorable to Moscow, even though some voters strongly oppose it.

However, others have come close.

Belarus, whose authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko meets with Russian leader Vladimir Putin several times a year, has become a launching pad for an invasion in 2022, and Russian tactical nuclear missiles are now stationed on its territory.

Iran's sale of drones to Russia has further strengthened relations, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is visiting Russia this week.

Ties with India, Brazil and South Africa remain strong, but Moscow appears to be the junior partner in a growing "no-holds-barred" partnership with China that has allowed Beijing, at deep discounts, to buy oil and gas that Russia can no longer sell to the West.

It is likely that Russia's handling of Armenia will be closely monitored, according to Reuters.

Pashinyan publicly questioned the will and ability of Russian peacekeepers to lift Azerbaijan's nine-month de facto blockade of the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and said it was wrong to rely solely on Moscow for security.

ICG's Olesia Vartanyan said Yerevan fears that Azerbaijan could take advantage of Moscow's perceived weakness to take control of that territory, especially in the enclave.

"Armenian officials said during the summer that by the time Russia finds time to help us, there will be no other country that can help," she said. "They are in crisis mode".

Moscow accused Pashinyan of behavior bordering on insolence, and on Friday called on Armenia's ambassador to protest against "hostile steps".

Armenia's decision to fully accede to the International Criminal Court (ICC) - as it wants to file war crimes charges against Azerbaijan - is another source of tension. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin on war crimes charges, so the move raises the prospect that he may not be able to visit the close ally.

Pashinyan, who called the ICC move an "unfortunate" in the context of Russia, also defended his wife's recent visit to Ukraine to deliver humanitarian aid.

An unnamed Russian diplomat accused Pashinyan, via the state news agency TASS, of acting as a tool of the West in an attempt to push Russia out of the South Caucasus.

Putin played down the rift on Tuesday, however, saying he did not think Yerevan had turned its back on Moscow, while accusing it of rejecting Russian peace proposals with Azerbaijan.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last Sunday that Russia "plays a consistent, very important role in stabilizing the situation in this region," and that it is not going anywhere.

Tensions are growing in Karabakh

Yesterday, the Kremlin expressed concern that tensions are growing between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan described the situation in that territory as "critical."

In recent weeks, Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of building up forces around Karabakh, which has effectively blockaded Baku since December 2022, triggering an acute famine in the area. The agreement reached last weekend to unblock the roads to the territory has not yet fully entered into force.

Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but is predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians. With support from Yerevan, the region gained de facto independence from Azerbaijan after a long war in the early 1990s.

Azerbaijan regained large swaths of territory in and around Karabakh in the second war in 2020, leaving the region dependent on a single road connecting it to Armenia. That road has been closed since December 2022, causing shortages of food, fuel and medicine in Karabakh.