Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are meeting on Thursday in Abu Dhabi to discuss next steps in finalising the peace agreement, their offices confirmed. This is the first formal bilateral meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan since they agreed on the draft text of the peace agreement, following nearly four decades of conflict. The results of this meeting will ultimately shape the future of the South Caucasus not only because of what the two leaders agree upon, but also because of Russia being for the first time absent from the Armenia-Azerbaijan equation. Richard Giragosian, Founding Director of the Regional Studies Centre (RSC), an independent think tank in Yerevan, told Euronews, "with Russia overwhelmed by its failed invasion of Ukraine, this is very much at the exclusion of Russia". And this exclusion is not coming from Moscow's initiative. Baku and Yerevan have both been distancing themselves from the Kremlin as their relations with Russia have deteriorated significantly over the past few years. The meeting in Abu Dhabi also follows a similar bilateral meeting between the Armenian premier and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in what Giragosian said was "a degree of surprising progress on both diplomatic tracks in this difficult post-war landscape." While bogged down in Ukraine, Moscow has been gradually losing its influence in the ex-Soviet space. The most striking change in this sense is the loss of Russia's decades-long stronghold in the South Caucasus region. In September 2023, Azerbaijan reclaimed complete control of the Karabakh region after a lightning military campaign, following a decades-long conflict with Armenia in which the Kremlin was a central actor. "It exposed the emptiness of a security reliance on Russia, but I would also say Armenia and Azerbaijan ironically share a same pursuit, a policy to defy Moscow pushing back and pushing out Russia from the South Caucasus", Giragosian said. Almost two years later, Yerevan and Baku are making history away from Russia by agreeing on the text of a peace accord and normalising their relations after a bloody conflict that until recently had no end in sight. Azerbaijan's Karabakh military campaign demonstrated to Armenia what Syria's and Iran's regimes found out later – Russia is not stepping in to support its allies when they need it. Giragosian told Euronews that Armenia realised this even sooner, in 2020, during the six-week escalation in Karabakh, "where Russia was more realistically seen as dangerously unreliable." Now that the region is "no longer the instrument of leverage for Russia", he said, Moscow will inevitably look for another way of keeping its influence over the South Caucasus. Moscow has been trying to repair the cooperation with its former ally. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Yerevan on 20 May, signalling the Kremlin's intent to stabilise and reinforce ties with Armenia. Armenia is now also subject to two separate Russian disinformation campaigns, according to Giragosian. The first focuses on reports of Russian military buildup at their base in Armenia's second-largest city, Gumri. Giragosian said part of the reason for this campaign is Russia's attempt to both scare the European Union, which has deployed monitors to Armenia, and to put pressure on the government in Yerevan as it moves closer to Europe. Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) published what it claims to be a Russian army order to increase its military presence at a base in Armenia. Yerevan categorically denied the claims that Russia is strengthening its presence in Armenia. The second disinformation campaign, Giragosian said, calling it "equally absurd", includes a Russian allegation of "a bio weapons facility in Armenia orchestrated by the Americans". Moscow had repeatedly made similar claims about US bio-weapons facilities in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion. Russia has also made similar false claims about Georgia in the past. These campaigns, Giragosian said, point to Russia's weakness. "Russia has lost a large degree of power and influence in the South Caucasus as well as Central Asia. This, however, is temporary. It's an aberration. We do see a storm on the horizon," he explained. Fifteen individuals, including two archbishops from the Apostolic Church, were arrested in Armenia at the end of June on the accusations of plotting a coup. Prime Minister Pashinyan said that law enforcement had foiled a large-scale and sinister plan by a "criminal oligarchic clergy" to destabilise the Republic of Armenia and seize power. A few days before these arrests, Armenian authorities detained Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian billionaire of Armenian origin who controls the operator of Armenia's national power grid, who also has political ambitions. Before his arrest, Karapetyan expressed his support and backing for the church, saying that "a small group of people who have forgotten the thousand-year history of Armenia and the church" were attacking the religious institution. "I have always stood with the Armenian Church and the Armenian people," the billionaire said, adding what seemed to be a direct indicator of his intentions: "If the politicians do not succeed, we will intervene in our own way in this campaign against the church." When asked about the attempted coup, Giragosian told Euronews the situation is "both more than it seems, but also less than it seems." "In the broader context, this was actually the fifth of a coup attempt against the Armenian democratically elected government (since the elections in 2018 when Pashinyan came to power)," he said. "None of these five attempts have been very serious. And a lot of the moves against the Armenian government are designed to appeal for Russian support rather than driven by Russian activity". Even if Moscow wanted to intervene more in Armenia, Giragosian said, it cannot with how "Russia remains overwhelmed by everything Ukraine" and how it is perceived in Armenia. Armenia, as well as other Russian neighbours, have already drawn their conclusions from "Russia's failed invasion of Ukraine," Giragosian told Euronews. "A significant lesson learned from the Ukrainian battlefield is the surprising weakness and incompetence of the Russian armed forces. That's an important lesson for all of the countries in the near or broad, Russia's neighbours." The second lesson is "Armenia's future is much more in the West, and there is no longer a nostalgia for authoritarian leadership in the model of Vladimir Putin". "Russia is largely to blame for its arrogance and for taking Armenia for granted. In other words, what we see is Armenia reasserting independence, strengthening sovereignty at the expense of years of over-dependence on Russia." In early 2025, the Armenian parliament adopted a bill aimed at starting the process of joining the European Union – an ultimately hostile step as far as Moscow is concerned. Yerevan also realised the risk of being on the wrong side of history "if we look at Russia's egregious crimes against Ukraine," Giragosian added. Moscow losing its influence in the region with Azerbaijan and Armenia distancing themselves from the former ally will leave a dangerous vacuum of power, Giragosian said. "Azerbaijan is quite correct, as is Armenia, in rejecting any mediating role for Russia." There are concerns and expectations that "an angry, vengeful Russia will lash out at all of her neighbours seeking to regain that lost influence". And although now Russia remains overwhelmed by its all-out war against Ukraine, there is a clear understanding that "this distraction will not last forever," especially as Armenia is to hold elections next June. Yerevan will be closely watching Moldova, where the upcoming parliamentary elections have already been targeted by Russia's disinformation campaigns and attempted manipulation of the voters' opinion at an unprecedented scale. In this regard, Armenia is increasing its cooperation with the EU. "Armenian transactional approach is prudent because it's incremental. It's not looking to NATO membership or anything overly provocative," Giragosian said. "But I do think Armenia's democratic credentials, legitimacy and outlook for stability really strengthen Armenia to defy any kind of submission to Putin's Russia." At the same time, Yerevan is also normalising its relations with Turkey. "Turkey seeks to regain its lost regional leadership role", Giragosian says, pointing to the economics of this situation, as Ankara is looking at reopening the border with Armenia to stabilise the east of Turkey. "We do expect a degree of a win-win situation in terms of a restoration of trade and transport. That's driving much of this diplomatic progress", he said, adding that Russia will still try to restore its influence. "Russia will, if it's smart, seek to play a managing role in the restoration of trade and transport, especially between Armenia and Azerbaijan," the strategy Armenia has already been pushing back against, according to Giragosian, as "Russia is so deeply unpopular and distrusted in Armenia." However, the real challenge is to prepare for what is to come, not the changes in Armenia, as Giragosian warned, but those coming from Russia. "We have to prepare for another scenario. For the day after Putin, a weak Russia with a power struggle in Moscow is an equally serious challenge in the region," he concluded. — Euronews
