This is a Somewhat Dangerous Moment for Armenia: Thomas de Waal

In 2024, Armenia will face numerous challenges. This was mentioned by Thomas de Waal, an expert on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in an interview with Azatutyun.

“Undoubtedly, this is a very decisive, important, and in some ways dangerous moment for Armenia in 2024. The country is faced with arguably the toughest choices, comparable to the situations in the late 1980s or even the 1920s. This concerns, of course, the loss of Karabakh and the flight of the Armenian population from there. This is a serious moment for Armenia, which some compare to the events of 1920 or even the 1915 Genocide. It will also be the year when Armenia will confront not only the threat from Azerbaijan but also the possibility of losing or severing relations with Russia. Thus, Armenia undoubtedly faces many challenges in 2024,” he said.

Addressing the observation that for many Armenians, Russia has not only abandoned them but has also betrayed them in a very dramatic way, Thomas de Waal noted, “Let’s start by acknowledging that Russia has always had numerous interests in this region. Although it may have had a stronger relationship with Armenia, it has never completely abandoned its relations with Azerbaijan. If we look at the recent history of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, we can see moments when Moscow was closer to Baku, for example, in 1990-1991.”

“For Russia, its interests are a priority, and the fact that Armenians are Christians and the historical relationships there are not that significant. But it is certain that Moscow continues to be the main provider of security for Armenia. There is a military alliance, and there are obligations that Moscow has undertaken towards Armenia. So what changed? The situation began to change obviously after the Velvet Revolution of 2018, when Nikol Pashinyan came to power in Armenia, who was a much more unpredictable and unreliable partner from Moscow’s perspective, whereas Ilham Aliyev remained a much more predictable and reliable partner in Azerbaijan. That was one of the changes.”

“Then we saw the 2020 war, when Russia only intervened at the last minute. While the Karabakh people welcomed Moscow's intervention, I believe that Armenians had already realized that change. I think the decisive moment was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, after which Russia's priorities shifted, and everything began to revolve around the war with Ukraine and the West. The Caucasus has become secondary; everything is now secondary compared to those war efforts.”

“If you look at what we have in the region, we see that on one hand, there is Armenia, which has a democratic government with intentions that seem more pro-European, and on the other hand, there is Azerbaijan, which is [from Russia's perspective] a much more reliable partner. I think if you read what Russian officials have been saying since the onset of the war, it is that they need to reorient all of Russia’s economy from the West towards the South and East, with the South meaning Georgia, but it also particularly means Azerbaijan— with rail routes to Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan is primarily a means for Russia to get south towards Iran and the Middle East. In that case, Armenia becomes less important. And that is why I think we saw this: for the first time in history, Russia did not respond, and its peacekeeping forces basically did not respond. They were evidently informed in advance that Azerbaijan was preparing to seize Karabakh.”