Litwin
Platinum Member
"At least seven Azerbaijani and two Armenian soldiers, as well as an Azerbaijani civilian, have been killed in the latest flare-up of a 30-year conflict between the two countries, bringing the total death toll to 14.
Clashes on the volatile border between the two South Caucasus nations began on Sunday, killing four Azerbaijani soldiers on Monday.
The neighbours have been locked in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. International efforts to settle the conflict have stalled."
Death toll in Armenia-Azerbaijan border clashes reaches 14 | Armenia News | Al Jazeera
JSTOR: Access Check
Russian Imperialism Revisited: From Disengagement to Hegemony - Domitilla Sagramoso - Google Books
Why Vladimir Putin Wants Destabilization, Not Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh | HuffPost
Why Vladimir Putin Wants Destabilization, Not Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh
2) Russia Has Politicized the anti-ISIS Struggle to Strengthen its Military Position in the South Caucasus
On April 4, 2016, citing an anonymous military source, Russian state media outlet Life News reported that Azerbaijan had deployed between 50-70 Syrian ISIS troops to fight against the Armenian military in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani government vehemently denied these accusations, and ultimately expelled the Life News reporters who released these claims from Azerbaijan, on the grounds that they were providing false information and provoking the conflict.
Azerbaijan’s strong opposition to the Life News ISIS report, was due to the reporters’ insinuation that Baku lacks control over its borders and that Azerbaijan willfully allowed ISIS fighters to pass through its territory via Turkey to intervene in the conflict. The Azerbaijan Defense Ministry openly stated that the allegations were a form of “sabotage by Kremlin media” intended to raise doubts about “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Azerbaijan.
From an objective standpoint, the notion that Azerbaijan allowed ISIS fighters to enter its territory is based on questionable logic. Azerbaijan is a secular Shia majority state that has cooperated with the US in its anti-ISIS campaign, because radical Islamists pose a threat to Aliyev’s regime security. Even if ISIS fighters were deployed to Karabakh, an analysis of Azerbaijan’s strategic interests demonstrates that this incident was likely little more than a one-time security breach.
Much like Putin has used the anti-ISIS struggle as a pretext to strengthen Bashar Al-Assad’s authority in Syria, invoking ISIS could be an effective way to justify an expanded military presence in the South Caucasus. By making both Armenia and Azerbaijan dependent on Russia for security, Moscow can play an indispensable role in regional security, weakening the influence of its archrivals, the United States and Turkey.
3) Russian Leverage in the South Caucasus is Maximized in a Frozen Conflict Scenario
Nagorno-Karabakh, since the 1994 ceasefire has been described as a frozen conflict zone. Armenia and Azerbaijan clash extensively over territory, with occasional episodes of violence, but hostilities are always kept in checked to avoid a full-scale war. The most recent flare-up of the conflict threatened to precipitate a “hot war” in Karabakh. However, lack of will and the immediate intervention of regional powers like Iran and Russia in favor of a truce (or in Turkey’s case, a cessation of hostility on Azerbaijan’s terms) re-established the frozen conflict status quo within days.
etc.
