The contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh is seething with a bloody battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan for over a month. As all the prospects of a ceasefire are out of option, Armenia has requested Vladimir Putin-led Russia to provide ‘necessary’ security assistance to end this conflict.
As a formal & official request to Moscow from Yerevan, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin after Azerbaijan and Armenia failed to agree on a fresh ceasefire. Kremlin has also responded to the request and said that it will provide all necessary help if the clashes take place directly on Armenian soil.
The failure of ceasefire talks and the official request by Armenia to Russia have increased the possibility of escalating it towards a larger Russia-Turkey conflict. This is the reason why Vladimir Putin had asked both sides to cease fire, de-escalate tensions and try solving it diplomatically and peacefully.
The Russian Foreign Ministry statement said, “The prime minister of Armenia has asked the Russian president to begin the urgent consultations with the aim of determining the kind and amount of aid which the Russian Federation can provide Armenia to ensure its security.” The Armenian Prime Minister invoked the close ties between the two countries and a 1997 treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance.
The fighting which is going on for a month now has been increasingly spiralling out of control. More than 1000 fighters of the Nagorno-Karabakh army have been killed, and Azerbaijan has not released its death toll. However, as per Russian estimates, the total death toll from both sides is being said to be around 5000.
Carey Cavanaugh, a former US ambassador and co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, said “It is impossible to calculate the risk, but the injection of either Russian or Turkish armed forces at this point would make a significant escalation of the conflict.” He also added that Putin is aware of the fact that expanded military conflict is not in Moscow’s interests.
Russia is also duty-bound to safeguard Armenian sovereignty under CSTO (The Collective Security Treaty Organisation) which was created in 2002. And Moscow also has a military base in the second-largest Armenian city of Gyumri and a defence pact with Armenia. Thus, Russian statements are a confirmation that Moscow will abide by its commitments if push comes to shove.
The Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswomen Maria Zakharova said that “concrete formats” of assistance to Armenia would be discussed.
The latest peace talks were organised by the USA, France and Russia in Geneva but they bore no fruit as the fighting continued even on Saturday after the Friday peace talks. All the regional powers are concerned about the conflict escalating beyond the southern Caucuses.
Both Iran and Russia are angry at Turkey as Erdogan is using the conflict to gain influence in the southern Caucuses. The escalation of the conflict further would mean that the region will get further destabilised and may become a long-term concern for Russia.
Russia is concerned that, as the conflict stretches longer, the region might turn into a factory of terrorists which may destabilise the peace in the southern Russian territories bordering the southern Caucuses. And the increased Turkish influence in the previous Soviet territories is a direct threat to Russian supremacy in the region.
Thus, President Vladimir Putin has given up on the possibility of these countries solving the conflict among themselves and has agreed to help Armenia as and when the conflict reaches its borders.