US and Turkey trying to fill vacuum left by Russia in South Caucasus, says Al Jazeera

Russia is moving away from the South Caucasus. Armenia, which was historically highly dependent on Moscow’s strategic and economic aid, has reoriented itself westwards, Al Jazeera writes.

Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe Dimitar Bechev stated that Moscow abysmally failed to back its ally as Azerbaijan regained full control over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022.

Currently, a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan is in the works as United States President Donald Trump is eager to see it across the finish line so he can claim credit.

In February 2024, Armenia suspended its participation in the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization. It also deepened security and defence cooperation with France.

For its part, Azerbaijan has had heightened tensions with Russia twice in recent years – in 2024 over a downed passenger jet over the Caspian Sea and this summer over the arrests of Azerbaijani nationals in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, which escalated into a major crisis.

Russia used to project regional influence by being the arbiter between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Now it has somehow managed to alienate both countries, while Turkiye and the US have stepped in to fill the vacuum.

In the South Caucasus, only Georgia appears to be leaning towards Moscow.  But that is largely because the governing Georgian Dream party and its informal leader, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, have clashed with the EU over their tilt towards authoritarianism. Yet Georgia has not given up on the EU; it has just rejected its demands for democratisation, which under Trump’s influence have diminished in value anyway. Rather than tie itself fully to Russia, Tbilisi is trying to juggle among Europe, the US and, of course, China.