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Russia’s Credibility as a Regional Peacekeeper Questioned After Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Russia’s credibility as a regional peacekeeper has been brought into question after the recent outbreak of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia had sought military assistance from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) during the 2020 conflict, but not this time. This decision raises questions about Russia’s position in the post-Soviet space.

On September 20, Russian peacekeepers came under fire from small arms while returning from an observation post of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the area near the settlement of Janatag. Margarita Simonyan, the Editor-in-Chief of RT, later reported without citing sources that allegedly five people were killed. According to the publication “SeverPost” and the St. Petersburg Club of Submariners and Veterans of the Navy, one of the deceased was Ivan Kovgan, the Deputy Commander of the peacekeeping contingent and the Deputy Commander of the Northern Fleet’s Submarine Forces for military-political work.

Azerbaijan has taken responsibility for the deaths of the peacekeepers. The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan expressed its “deepest condolences” in connection with the incident. On September 21, the Kremlin announced that President Ilham Aliyev had apologized during a conversation with Vladimir Putin. According to the Kremlin’s statement, Aliyev also expressed his readiness to provide material assistance to the families of the deceased.

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that the deceased peacekeepers “as always, took the blow for the sake of peace in the region.” “The black ingratitude, with which the unscrupulous ones tried to cast doubt on their activities, will not overshadow their feat, but will forever disgrace the slanderers,” she wrote in a telegram.

This is not the first time that Russian peacekeepers have been killed due to the actions of Azerbaijani military personnel in the region. In November 2020, during the previous escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, a Mi-24 helicopter accompanying a convoy was shot down – this happened over the internationally recognized territory of Armenia. Two servicemen were killed, and another was injured.

On the afternoon of September 19, Azerbaijan began shelling Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku referred to this as “counter-terrorism operations of a local nature.” Within a day, Azerbaijan and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic had reached an agreement on a ceasefire, with the condition that the NKR would disband its military units.

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, paid tribute to the memory of the deceased Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and condemned the perpetrators of their killings to eternal shame. Sources for this article include Meduza and Life.ru.