On Tuesday, September 13, clashes broke out again in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh area, the deadliest since the 2020 war, with 49 Armenian soldiers and 50 Azerbaijani service members killed. The area is officially part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of the Armenian majority, backed by Yerevan, for the past two decades. The Kremlin has so far been responsible for mediating and obtaining a weak ceasefire in 2020 that is now cracking since attention has been redirected to Ukraine.
Azerbaijan, already backed by Turkey in 2020, may now exploit the situation to attempt further territorial gains, restarting the conflict while 2,000 Russian peacekeepers are still in the area. On September 16, Vladimir Putin declared that the Kremlin still has the resources to deal with the conflict, but Armenia doubts Moscow's ability to handle the issue in parallel with its defeats in Ukraine.
Moreover, the Kremlin's role is perceived as not interested in providing a solution to the conflict, but only a weak mediation asserting its influence over the area. Meanwhile, the EU has also been involved in mediation in recent months, trying to exploit the growing vacuum left by Russian influence, but having to rely on Baku's energy supplies, its influence is limited.
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