ALEXA FULTS, PAUL STRONSKI
With the world’s eyes fixed on Ukraine, the standoff between Armenia and Azerbaijan is shifting quickly, and Russia and the United States are uncertain about how to respond. A 2020 Russian-brokered ceasefire that ended the second Karabakh war has brought neither full stability nor security to the region, and even prior to the Ukraine war, Moscow’s peacekeepers have struggled to do their jobs. But a new peace process between Baku and Yerevan may be emerging anyway with a new broker—the European Union—increasingly active. These dynamic changes over the past two months highlight how Russia’s war against Ukraine is shaking up the Eurasian landscape.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has its origins in the late Soviet period, when residents of the ethnically Armenian autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh requested that Moscow sever the enclave from the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and attach it to the Armenian SSR. The move led to a rise in nationalist sentiment on both sides and a protracted, bloody conflict.
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