"Armenia is a pawn in the West's game" Analysts' insights on Western policy in South Caucasus

Russian politicians criticising the collective West are at least right about one thing: in order to destabilise the situation on the borders with Russia, the EU and the US are ready to do anything, including sacrificing peace in the countries on the perimeter with Russia.

At a press conference in Minsk, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov noted that “the United States and its satellites are trying to undermine the implementation of the agreements reached by Armenia and Azerbaijan with the assistance of Russia.”

He also said that the collective West seeks to interfere with stabilising the situation in the South Caucasus. And if you look closely at how the EU and the US are now trying to “hand-feed” Yerevan, bribing with financial and military assistance, it becomes clear what Lavrov means.

How do Russian and Belarusian political analysts view the West's actions in the South Caucasus? What, in their opinion, is the EU and US policy aimed at?

Thus, according to Nikolay Mezhevich, professor of St. Petersburg State University and Russian political scientist, the West is in fact neither pro-Armenian nor pro-Azerbaijani. As he noted in a conversation with Caliber.Az correspondent, Baku and Yerevan often have a feeling that the West plays on one side or the other. But in reality, the fact is that the strategy of Western countries is aimed at building a field of instability in all territories to the east of Europe.

“In Russia, they say, ‘we didn’t live well, there’s nothing to start with,’ but in the West, they lived quite well until the system of comfortable political and economic existence collapsed in recent years. Therefore, the efforts of the West, especially the EU, are now aimed at building a zone of chaos around their borders, so that against this background they can mask their problems as much as possible from the internal voter and divert their attention to external irritants. In addition, an attempt to fan a fire in the South Caucasus is also a game to neutralize Europe’s political competitors. In particular, Türkiye, which with its strong foreign policy can be redirected from the European field to problems in the South Caucasus, will stall its political plans in the Old World. But the principle is the same - switching attention,” Mezhevich is sure.

Meanwhile, Belarusian political scientist Sviatlana Korniechenko said the West does not draw conclusions from its mistakes, but only seeks to foment confrontation throughout Eurasia.

“The problem is that European elites are influenced by the United States, which is, in principle, extremely ruthless in its strategic interests, including not being too concerned about peace and stability in Europe itself. Expressing the will of the United States, the EU is now trying to cause discord in the South Caucasus, without thinking much about the fact that by fanning contradictions in this region and encouraging Armenia, they are leading the situation not to peace, but to a new escalation in the region. It is quite clear that with its support for Armenia, the West risks achieving a new effect: Yerevan, obsessed with revanchist sentiments, will arrange a new escalation in the region, creating a new hot spot not far from the borders of Europe.

Why do European countries need this, which are now establishing trade routes bypassing Russia along the Trans-Caspian corridor, spending their financial and political resources on this? The conflict in the South Caucasus does not worry Russia too much; it does not have a common border with Armenia, but the aggravation of the situation in the region will hit the EU plans and will most likely undermine cooperation with Azerbaijan, which is now an important supplier of energy resources to the EU.

It is clear that for Europe itself this is an extremely unfavourable scenario, but this development of events suits the United States very much. And stupid and narrow-minded Armenia simply serves as a pawn in this game. However, this game of the West is temporary and will not lead to anything in the long term, because the union of Azerbaijan and Türkiye, strong cooperation between Baku and Moscow, in my opinion, creates a stable formula for political balance in the region and will extinguish all the fires fanned by forces from outside,” Korniechenko concluded.