Russian peacekeeping soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh may be leaving soon, former Armenian Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan said at a party rally in Yerevan last Friday. He emphasized that the presence of Russian forces there would make little sense after Baku and Yerevan reached a peace agreement.
Moscow’s peacekeeping mission in the region has already become “problematic” as a result of Yerevan’s own policies, according to Russian officials. Bagratyan, the leader of Armenia’s opposition Freedom Party, stated that it is unclear why Russia “should do Armenians a favor” by ensuring regional peace and security if Yerevan officially acknowledges it as a part of Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh was an independent area of Soviet Azerbaijan with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population. It seceded from Azerbaijan before Baku proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union, sparking an ethnic struggle that killed thousands of lives before being halted by a 1994 agreement. Yerevan then provided consistent support to the region.
Azerbaijani troops advanced to cut off the main road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper in 2020, resulting in a significant flare-up. The conflict ended with a truce mediated by Russia, which included the deployment of a Russian peacekeeping force to Karabakh.
The peace was then mainly maintained, though there were rare minor flare-ups between the two neighbors in the region. In the spring of 2023, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed willingness to yield the contested region in exchange for international security guarantees for the local ethnic Armenian population.
