In Armenia, the Russian contingent flaunts its impotence

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As Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have been under blockade for five months, Russia’s role is increasingly contested in its former precarious South Caucasus.

From our special correspondent in Goris, Blandine Lavignon

IAlong the road that runs from Goris, in Armenia, to Nagorno-Karabakh, convoys of Russian military trucks are as much a part of the landscape as the mountainous reliefs of the Syunik region. Since the 2020 ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, signed mediated by Moscow, some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in the region.

The effectiveness of this contingent is however quite relative: it is a few meters from the Russian positions that a new checkpoint was installed by the Azerbaijani forces, on April 23, at the entrance to a new road built by Yerevan in direction of the Lachin Corridor. This corridor is the only land connection that allows, from Armenia, to reach the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, territory…