Russian Ceasefire Deal in Nagorno-Karabakh Marks Slow, Painful End of Empire in the South Caucasus

Azerbaijan is triumphant — but its triumph, while recognized by Russia, was really delivered by Turkey. Aliyev makes no bones about this, and in his speech about the ceasefire referred to Putin in neutral terms while thanking “my dear brother Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

Managing decline

Russia may have the role of peacekeeper, but it is worth noting that this is an additional burden on its military and treasury. It does bake a role for itself into the geopolitics of the region, to be sure, but this was a part of the world in which it was already meant to be dominant? When you have to escalate your commitment to retain your position, that does not seem a sign of progress so much as laboring to hold back decline.

Whether or not Turkish officers do end up working in the new peacekeeping center for ceasefire control is in many ways irrelevant. In a pattern reminiscent of the changing orientation in Central Asia — where Moscow retains the overt trappings of hegemony, while behind the scenes Beijing’s economic power is increasingly dominant — so too in the South Caucasus, Russia is having to accept new players in what was once its unquestioned backyard.

The irony is that it is not that Russia did not have the political and military muscle to act more quickly and decisively, had it wanted to.

The response to the shooting down of its aircraft in many ways demonstrates a decay in Moscow’s will, its capacity to maintain its imperial pretensions that has been evident for some time.

On the same day as the ceasefire agreement, an Azerbaijani surface-to-air missile shot down a Russian Mi-24 helicopter gunship well in Armenian airspace as it was escorting a Russian military convoy to its 102nd Military Base in Gyumri. Two crewmen were killed.

Baku has extended its apologies, after a fashion. Although the action was well away from the conflict zone, the Azeris highlighted that it was flying at night and at low altitude — hardly surprising for a convoy escort — and “in the context of these factors and in light of the tense situation in the region and increased combat readiness in connection with possible provocations of the Armenian side, the duty combat crew decided to open fire to kill.”

An immediate parallel has been drawn with the shooting down in November 2015 of a Russian Su-24 bomber that was involved in combat operations in northern Syria when it cut across Turkish airspace. Then, a clearly furious Putin denounced the act as a “stab in the back by terrorist accomplices.” Sanctions were then imposed on everything from package holidays to Turkish tomatoes.

Moscow’s bluster ended up masking weakness. Eventually, Erdogan delivered his condolences, carefully framed not to be an apology. Nonetheless, the Kremlin chose to pretend that this is exactly what had been offered, and the sanctions were lifted.

Moscow pretended that honor had been satisfied. In fact, Erdogan had outstared Putin.

Likewise, this time the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its satisfaction that “Baku immediately admitted its guilt… We also note the assurances given by the Azerbaijani side that an operative investigation of this incident will be carried out.”

In other words, the matter is over, and the two dead pilots will not be avenged or likely even remembered.

This is neither mature statecraft not self-confident hegemony. This is managing decline, a Russia that in regional terms is strong in capacities, weak in will, trying to make the best of a situation, and in the process disappointing its allies and doing nothing to deter its challengers. All one can say is that at least the guns are silent now — but for how long?

(Prof. Mark Galeotti is a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies. He is the author of “We Need To Talk About Putin.” This commentary originally appeared in the Moscow Times.)