Victoria Panfilova, columnist for "NG", exclusive to VK
The arrival of the Russian delegation headed by President Vladimir Putin in Baku could not fail to impress. Describing how the Russians were received by the Azerbaijani side is unnecessary. The awesome hospitality of the Azerbaijani people is well known. Those who want to see this again can easily find relevant videos. It is known that the outcome of talks is that the presidents Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin signed a number of documents in the energy and transport sectors. And that's important. Because, despite the claims of a number of experts on the trouble-free relationship between Baku and Moscow, this was not so in recent years. After Putin’s visit we clearly can talk about their warming.
The details of the visit are no less interesting. Vladimir Putin's visit to Baku during the beginning of the struggle for the presidency, of course, is a serious sign of Moscow's support for the present policy of Azerbaijan. Ilham Aliyev, who had a huge advantage over opponents even before, received another advantage of an invaluable size. And when you consider that in a couple of days during the summit of the Turkic countries Baku will receive at least another representative of the former Soviet Union - Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the superiority of the current Azerbaijani leader begins to seem infinite. Here most of the experts who express this point of view cannot talk back. However, statements that Putin's visit would mark a shift in emphasis in the Moscow regional policy in the South Caucasus seem to be unfounded. Proponents of this "theory" refer to the following factors:
- The Russian leader's long-awaited in Armenia - a country which is a strategic partner of Russia, but he chose to go to Azerbaijan;
- Russia sold to Azerbaijan a large consignment of arms, and it is symptomatic against the cooling of relations with Armenia;
- The relationship between Russia and Armenia has deteriorated because of the Armenian drift towards the European direction.
Not aiming to refute these points, we will still try to understand what is happening.
Vladimir Putin will go to Yerevan in September. He had to go somewhere before and somewhere later. The fact that this time the Russian leader decided first to visit Baku shows Moscow's desire to demonstrate an equivalent policy in the South Caucasus. He behaves like a strong player for whom priority is not bilateral relations, which in itself are of course important, but the entire region. We shall not focus on the fact that it was originally planned by the Russian side to continue the sea route from Baku to the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea,.
Russia's position in the South Caucasus has been characterized today by actions that could restore its dominance in comparison with other global players in the position of "historical" zone of interest. There is some warming with Georgia. As for Azerbaijan and Armenia, the situation is that with one of these countries the tendency of reducing constructivism could lead to quite undesirable consequences, so reaching a particular low point, the level of relations had to start moving up, and the relations with the second country are at such a high (at least declaratively) level, that their small decline is perhaps even a pattern than a sensation, even given that Yerevan’s expectations from the alliance with Moscow are likely to have been more optimistic than they should be, by definition.
Moscow and Baku have relatively easily experienced the issue of the Qabala radar station. Mainly because, according to a number of Russian military experts, the station itself, from a practical point of view, could not be of special importance for Russia. But the further trend of termination of cooperation on some other issues became dangerous. So if there had not been any points of possible cooperation, say, in the energy field, Moscow and Baku would invent them in any other industry.
Sales of Russian arms to Azerbaijan as an argument allegedly indicating a change in Moscow's policy in the region do not hold water. First, perhaps, it is the largest, but not the first deal of its kind between the parties. Second, selling a large shipment of arms to Azerbaijan, Russia in those days carried out a similar operation with Armenia at bargain prices accepted in the CSTO.
Russia is irritated by the negotiations on Armenian rapprochement with the EU. These statements are made on the expert level, but not at the higher one. However, negotiations in the framework of the "Eastern Partnership" did not begin today and not yesterday, but much earlier, and still the strategic partnership between Moscow and Yerevan is not disturbed. In addition, they may well be regarded as a message from Armenia to Russia on the invitation into the Eurasian Economic Community. For some reason, official Yerevan has not received it, though it had enthusiastically responded to the emergence of the Customs Union, and has always shown interest in the integration processes in the post-Soviet space. That is, there are just more questions to Russia than to Armenia. Why does it still ignore its ally? It seems that all the points of the «i» will be placed during Vladimir Putin's visit to Yerevan. And if it is the time to sound the invitation for Armenia to the EEC and its regular "yes", then the surprise will not be relevant. By the way, in this light, the self-sufficient attitude of Azerbaijan to multilateral integration projects initiated by Russia seems very relevant. After all, this republic with its potential cannot be compared with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or at least with the same Armenia, which would join the alliance of this kind hoping to solve its economic problems.
Russian policy in the South Caucasus may change. But these changes will strengthen its position in the region, and it is unlikely that Russia will pay the price of worsening relations with one of the actors in the region for the sake of another. Moscow's interests in the South Caucasus, as well as in the post-Soviet space, were announced by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in a recent interview to the Georgian TV Company "Rustavi-2":
- Russia strongly opposes the military presence of third countries on its borders;
- Russia is interested in a peaceful settlement of the conflicts through direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict;
- Russia is interested in expanding the EEC by the republics of the former USSR.
The announcement seems to be very clear and unambiguous.
