Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in UAE Abu Dhabi on Thursday to discuss the next steps in the final decision on the peace agreement, their office confirmed.
This is the first formal bilateral meeting with Armenia and Azerbaijani leaders as they agreed to a draft peace agreement following nearly 40 years of conflict.
The outcome of the conference will ultimately shape the future of the South Caucasus, not just those two leaders agree on, but also because Russia was the first time absent from the Armenia and Azabaijan equations.
Richard Giragosian, founder of Yerevan’s independent think tank, Regional Studies Centre (RSC), told Euroneus:
And this exclusion is not from the Moscow initiative. Baku and Yerevan are keeping their distance from the Kremlin as relations with Russia have deteriorated significantly over the past few years.
The conference in Abu Dhabi was also a “surprising progress of both diplomatic tracks in this difficult postwar landscape,” following a similar bilateral meeting between Armenian Prime Minister and Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan.
Former ally of Moscow
While stuck in Ukraine, Moscow is gradually losing its former Soviet influence in space. The most notable change in this sense is the loss of Russia’s decades of bases in the South Caucasus region.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh region after a decades-long conflict with Armenia, where the Kremlin was a central actor.
“It exposed the emptiness of security for Russia, but Armenia and Azerbaijan ironically say they share the same pursuit: Moscow shares a policy of pushing Russia back and pushing it out of the South Caucasus,” Zilagosian said.
Almost two years later, Yerevan and Baku are stealing history from Russia by agreeing to the text of the peace agreement and normalizing relations after a bloody conflict that had not ended until recently.
Azerbaijan’s Karabakh army campaign showed Armenia what Syrian and Iranian regimes later discovered. Russia has not stepped in to support its allies when needed.
The Zilagusian told Euroneuz that Armenia noticed this earlier in 2020 during a six-week escalation in Karabakh.
The region “is no longer a way of leveraging Russia,” he said, saying Moscow will inevitably look for another way to maintain its impact on the South Caucasus.
Unstable Armenia
Moscow is trying to repair cooperation with its previous allies. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Yerevan on May 20th to demonstrate the Kremlin’s intention to stabilize and strengthen relations with Armenia.
According to the Zilagosian, Armenia is currently being subject to two separate Russian disinformation campaigns. The first focuses on reporting on Russian military accumulation at the base of Gumli, Armenia’s second largest city.
Zilagusian said that part of the reason for the campaign was Russia’s attempt to scare the European Union, which deployed monitors in Armenia, and Russia’s attempt to put pressure on Yerevan’s government as it approaches Europe.
Ukrainian Military Intelligence (HUR) has released what it claims is an order from the Russian army to increase military presence at Armenian bases. Yerevan has firmly denied the claim that Russia is strengthening its presence in Armenia.
Giragosian said the second disinformation campaign was called “equally ridiculous.”
Moscow repeatedly made similar claims about Ukraine’s US bioweapons facilities prior to the full-scale invasion. Russia has also made similar false claims about Georgia in the past.
These campaigns point to Russia’s weakness, Giragosian said. “Russia has lost a large amount of power and influence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. This is temporary. It’s extraordinary. There’s a storm on the horizon,” he explained.
“Storm on the horizon”
Fifteen individuals, including two archbishops from the Apostolic Church, were arrested in Armenia at the end of June on charges of plotting a coup.
Prime Minister Pashinyan said law enforcement has thwarted a massive, ominous plan by “criminal oligarch clerics” to destabilise the Republic of Armenia and take power.
A few days before these arrests, Armenian authorities detained Sanvel Karapetian, a Russian billionaire of Armenian origin who controls the politically ambitions of Armenian national power grid.
Before his arrest, Karapetian expressed his support and support for the church, saying that “a small group of people who have forgotten the millennium history of Armenia and the church” were attacking religious facilities.
“I have always stood up to the Armenian Church and the people of Armenian,” the billionaire said, adding what appears to be a direct indicator of his intentions.
When asked about the attempted coup, Giragosian told Euroneus that the situation was “more than it appears, less than it appears.”
“In a broader context, this was actually the fifth attempt at a coup against Armenia’s democratically elected government (since the 2018 election when Pashinyan came to power),” he said.
“None of these five attempts are very serious, and many moves against the Armenian government are designed to appeal for Russian support, rather than being driven by Russian activities.”
Even if Moscow wanted to intervene in Armenia more, the Gilagosians said they could not “become overwhelmed by everything in Ukraine” and how this is perceived in Armenia.
The Ukrainian Factor of the South Caucasus
Armenia, like other Russian neighbors, has already drawn conclusions from “the Russian invasion of Ukraine failed,” Zilagosian told Euroneus.
“The important lessons learned from the Ukrainian battlefield are the surprising weaknesses and incompetence of the Russian army. This is an important lesson for all countries in the vicinity or broader countries of Russia.”
The second lesson is, “Armenia’s future is much more in the West, and Vladimir Putin’s model no longer has no nostalgia for authoritarian leadership.”
“Russia is primarily blameless for its rog arrogance and for taking Armenia for granted. In other words, what we are seeing is that Armenia reaffirms its independence and strengthens its sovereignty at the expense of excessively overreliant reliance on Russia.”
In early 2025, the Armenian Parliament adopted a bill aimed at launching the process of participation in the European Union. This is ultimately an antagonistic step as far as Moscow is concerned.
Yerevan also recognized the risks of being on the wrong side of history “if you see Russia’s terrible crimes against Ukraine,” Zilagosian added.
Power vacuum in the South Caucasus
Moscow will leave behind dangerous forces in the region as Azerbaijan and Armenia distance themselves from their previous allies, leaving them with unfavourable influence, Zilagusian said. “Azerbaijan is as accurate as Armenia in rejecting the role of Russia’s mediation.”
There is concern and hope that “Raku, revenge Russia will be attacked by all its neighbors trying to regain its loss of impact.”
And now, Russia remains overwhelmed by the all-out war with Ukraine, but there is a clear understanding that “this distraction will not last forever” especially as Armenia will hold elections next June.
Yerevan looks closely at Moldova. There, future parliamentary elections are already targeting Russia’s disinformation campaign and attempts to manipulate voter opinions on an unprecedented scale.
In this regard, Armenia is expanding its cooperation with the EU.
“Armenian’s transactional approach is cautious because it is progressive. We’re not looking for NATO membership or anything overly provocative,” Zilagosian said.
“However, I think Armenia’s outlook for democratic qualifications, legitimacy and stability really strengthens Armenia’s ignorance of Putin’s all sorts of submission to Russia.”
At the same time, Yerevan’s relationship with Türkiye has also been normalising.
“Turkey is trying to regain the leadership role in the lost region,” says Giragosian, who refers to the economics of this situation as Ankara considers reopening its border with Armenia to stabilize the east of Turkey.
“We expect a favorable situation for both sides in terms of trade and transport recovery, which drives many of this diplomatic progress,” he said, adding that Russia is still trying to recover its impact.
“Russia is striving to play a managerial role in the recovery of trade and transport, especially between Armenia and Azerbaijan, when it is smart,” says the Armenian strategy already counterattacks as Russia is so unpopular and distrustful in Armenia.”
But the real challenge is to prepare what is to come, not Armenia, as the Zilagosians warned, as they came from Russia.
“We must prepare for another scenario. The weak Russia, which involves a power struggle in Moscow the day after Putin, is equally a serious challenge in the region,” he concluded.
