The withdrawal of Russian troops from Azerbaijan is a sign of the weakness of the Russian Federation. This is stated in a Foreign Affairs article.
The publication recalls that on April 17, a column of Russian tanks and trucks passed through a number of Azerbaijani cities, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous territory in the center of the South Caucasus, over which Azerbaijan and Armenia have been fighting for more than three decades. As of 2020, Russian peacekeepers are there. Now the Russian flag flying over the military base in the region has been taken down.
„Although it surprised many, Russia's withdrawal further consolidated the power shift that began in late September 2023, when Azerbaijan seized the territory and forced the mass exodus of some 100,000 Karabakh Armenians almost overnight, while Russian troops stood aside”, the article says.
The authors point out that Azerbaijan, an authoritarian country, has become a powerful player with significant oil and gas resources, a strong military and lucrative ties to both Russia and the West. Meanwhile, two other countries in the region, Armenia and Georgia, are experiencing their own tectonic shifts. Armenia, a traditional ally of Russia, is increasingly turning to the West.
We remind you that Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Russia, acting on the ground as a "peacemaker", did nothing to help the Armenians. Later, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan admitted that his country had made a strategic mistake by relying on protection from Moscow.