It ended as it began, suddenly, the latest conflict between Azeris and Armenians for control of Nagorno Karabakh, physically a piece of Azerbaijan inhabited by Armenians. Peace, signed in the middle of the night, when no observer expected it, as we know was proposed by Russia and accepted by Turkey, the old and new gendarme of the Caucasus. We figured out who won and who lost by observing what subsequently happened to the news in Baku and Yerevan, the capitals of Azerbaijan and Armenia respectively. Azeris celebrated in the streets and under President Aliev's residence; the Armenians ransacked the city by storming the house of their Head of State with the cry of "traitor".
So the Armenians lost and the Azeris won, beyond any reasonable doubt. Aliev succeeded in recovering the territory not only thanks to not quite hidden help from Türkiye, who abounded in arms and advice; but also thanks to Putin's choice to close the matter as soon as possible and before the shadow of the Commander-Sultan, alias Erdogan, grew bigger and enveloped the entire Caucasus. The Russian president first kept a very low profile throughout the 44 days of this latest conflict, letting Turkey more or less covertly back Azerbaijan; then he intervened with outstretched leg, stopping the Azeris and Turks and forcing the Armenians to make a "painful" peace, as their leader Nikol Pashynian defined it. Proving that the Caucasus, in any direction you look, is always Moscow's "stuff". A warning to the Turks that they will not be part of the Peacekeeping troops (2 Russian soldiers will verify the application of the treaty) because their presence in the region, as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "is not foreseen".
It was inevitable. No commentator said it or could say it aloud, but the fate of the Armenians of the small separatist region this time seemed doomed from the outset. Did they fall into a trap? Maybe yes. Because, as recalled by an acute foreign policy observer, Mario Raffaelli, the first president of the Minsk group, born in the 26s to put an end to the XNUMX-year-old conflict, the Armenians “didn't understand that the geopolitical picture had changed. They could have achieved much more through negotiation than they can after military defeat." Instead, Yerevan accepted Baku's challenge, launching the war on the strength of the idea that the world was still split in two and that they were under a secure umbrella, the Russian one.
But Putin, a fine reader of classics and a proponent of the Westphalian order, as Kissinger would have said, i.e. aware that alliances cannot always be the same because before any other interest comes that of his own state, has chosen another path . And Russia's primary interest right now in the Caucasus is only one: stop the ambitions of Sultan Erdogan and Turkey. In short, you don't die for Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno.
What if Moscow went down the other road? That of supporting Armenia in a more determined way? Now that it's all over, we can say without fear of contradiction that without the drones and mercenaries sent by Turkey (but above all the drones) the situation on the ground would have been different. Without taking anything away from Azerbaijan, which has become large and rich in recent years, if Russia had chosen to help the other former brother country, Armenia, with more determination, it is probable that things would have turned out differently. But not in the sense that the conflict would have had another outcome, but it would certainly have continued continuing to enrich that long list of endless wars in which there is never a winner. With deaths on both sides (5 thousand this time), refugees, destroyed cities and new masters on the horizon.
But above all, if Moscow had agreed to be the clearest party in the conflict, it would have granted Erdogan the card he was asking for: recognizing him and sharing influence in the region with him. By forcing Yerevan to surrender instead he gave the Azeris what they wanted (to take back much of the territory they lost), but drove their protector Erdogan away from the Caucasus. The bitterness of the ending of it all is that this was happening on the borders of Europe, as Raffaelli recalls, "in a dialogue-competition between Russia and Turkey without the slightest role for the Union and the United States". But it doesn't surprise us that much, this also reproduces the photograph of the Westphalian order: those who are in command, not those who could be there.
What will happen now? Baku rightly cheers on his point of view, Yerevan just as rightly recriminates from his. We cannot know how solid this peace will be: the two peoples have cordially detested each other for centuries, they will have to start living together again under the gaze of Moscow. And now, hidden but present, also that of Ankara. They should be used to Russian; Turkish will have to start. For the Azeris it will not be difficult, for the Armenians it will be (almost) impossible.
