Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The list of countries wanting to take advantage of Western sanctions to boost their food exports to Russia has nothing in common but the desire to gain a new market.
Armenia has not been immune to the recent turmoil affecting the post-Soviet space and this summer saw the worst flare-up on the Line of Contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces since 1994.
Separatists across Europe are hailing Scotland's referendum, but they also know that breaking up is a traumatic process.
Last year, Armenian President Sargsyan committed his country to joining Putin’s Eurasian Union, instead of going toward the EU. A year on, serious discussions between the EU and Yerevan on how to re-launch the relationship have yet to start.
The Sochi meeting between Russia’s, Armenia’s, and Azerbaijan’s presidents is but one episode in the series of Russia’s protracted peacemaking efforts. Rather, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict serves as a great pretext for Russia’s presence in the South Caucasus.
Putin enjoyed his moment in the media limelight as a peace-maker over Karabakh. But the lack of substance from the summit suggests that Russia is as out of ideas as anyone else on the Karabakh conflict.
The ceasefire in Nagorny Karabakh has been violated multiple times over the last few days. Without a more substantial peace process that both Armenia and Azerbaijan can buy into, the violence is all too likely to re-occur.
Crimea and Nagorno-Karabakh are two regions with similar histories which took very different paths after the Soviet Union broke up. With the invasion of Crimea their paths seem to be again converging.
Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed a treaty on the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) on May 29. While Russia mainly hopes to increase its political clout, all three presidents realize how many difficulties they will have to overcome.
The ceasefire, which halted the war over Nagorny Karabakh 20 years ago, has been broken with grim regularity. Ordinary soldiers and civilians are the ones who pay the price for a lack of agreement on the front line, which is called Karabakh’s Line of Contact.
