Day: February 7, 2024

Armenia lost Nagorno-Karabakh, but the regional ambitions of Azerbaijan supported by Turkey may mean that the worst is not over for Yerevan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L) shake hands in Dubai on December 1, 2023. © Getty Images

Following the one-day war fought between Armenia and Azerbaijan on September 19, Turkey and Azerbaijan are now in full control of geopolitics in the South Caucasus. The focus of the emerging axis between Ankara and Baku had been to once and for all resolve the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Following 35 years of intermittent warfare, that objective has now been achieved, at the great expense of Armenia – and of Russia.

The self-styled Republic of Artsakh will soon cease to exist. Unilaterally established by ethnic Armenians in the autonomous Azeri province of Nagorno-Karabakh, it was the linchpin of Russian hegemony in the region. Playing both sides, the Kremlin ensured that it had the final say in regional developments. The one-day war produced two important results: all ethnic Armenians residing in Artsakh were forced to flee, and Azerbaijan is now in full control of its own, internationally recognized territory.

This fundamentally alters the security architecture in the geopolitically important South Caucasus region. As the scope for outside mediation will now be defined by Ankara and Baku, there will be no more outside “peace plans.”

Following the cease-fire agreement in 1994, Armenia assumed the role of protector for the Republic of Artsakh, and it retained control of those Azeri territories between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper that it had seized by military force. Although Artsakh was not formally recognized even by Yerevan, it represented a substantial de facto enlargement of the territory of Armenia.

Backed by Turkey, Azerbaijan executed its counteroffensive in three stages. The 44-day war in the fall of 2020 resulted in Baku regaining control over a large part of Nagorno-Karabakh and in a rout of the bulk of the Armenian forces from the surrounding areas. Russian intervention prevented a total collapse of the Armenian side, and 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were deployed to ensure continued free passage between Artsakh and Armenia. The second stage was a blockade that made life for the remaining Armenians inside Artsakh very difficult. The third and final stage was the assault on September 19, which ended in swift capitulation by the Armenian forces.

Turkey and Azerbaijan are the unequivocal winners. They will now be able to dictate the conditions for what will follow. The biggest loser in the short term is Armenia. With a population of 2.8 million, it has been forced to accept 100,000 refugees and it lives under the threat of an Azeri invasion. Although both sides have offered to recognize the territorial integrity of the other side, Baku maintains strategic ambiguity by referring to remaining Azeri exclaves inside Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.”

The fallout of Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia

Having long believed it was protected by Russia, Armenia has started currying favor with the West. It has not only reneged on a pledge to host drills of the Russian-led Common Security Treaty Organization. On October 3, it crossed the Rubicon by opting to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. That means that if President Vladimir Putin were to visit Armenia, he would risk being arrested. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded this move as “extremely hostile” and threatened there would be the “most negative consequences.” But the only consequence to date has been that Russian customs is making trouble for imports of Armenian brandy.

These moves indicate how much Russia has lost. Its peacekeepers are getting ready to leave Azerbaijan. They were subjected to intermittent shelling of their bases that destroyed equipment and the killing of several Russian soldiers, including a senior Russian commander. No escalation followed. The Kremlin is so dependent on its transport route to Iran that it was forced to accept this humiliation, or risk antagonizing Azerbaijan.

Russia has been informed that once its peacekeepers have left Azeri territory, they will not be welcome in Armenia, and it is likely that in addition it will be asked to vacate its remaining bases on Armenian territory.

Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Armenia was home to around 10,000 Russian troops. About half were stationed at the 102nd military base at Gyumri, the second-largest city in Armenia. Located near Turkey, it was the largest Russian military base abroad. Additional garrisons have been at Zvartnots airport and at Erebuni military base. Russian border guards have also patrolled the borders with Turkey and Iran. Given that many of these troops have been sent to the “meat grinder” in Ukraine, it is not clear how many are left. Yet, being called on to leave completely would be a major setback.

Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh are evacuated on September 26, 2023, in Kornidzor, Armenia, after the defeat of Armenian separatist forces against Azerbaijan. Some 100,000 refugees from the region have fled to Armenia. © Getty Images

The immediate future will be marked by efforts to finalize a formal peace treaty. This process has long been pursued along two tracks, one with Russia and the other with the European Union and the United States. Now it is up to Azerbaijan to decide both the terms of a treaty and where it is to be signed. Given that the Armenian population has been displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, and that both sides have offered to recognize the territorial integrity of the other, there is not much left to talk about. Yet, the outcome is shrouded in uncertainty.

On October 5, the two sides were to meet at Granada, Spain, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel. Although Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did show up, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev did not. In a clear snub to France, and to aspiring Western mediators, he hinted at dissatisfaction with President Macron’s pro-Armenian statements and talk about French arms sales.

A few days later, the two sides were to meet at a summit meeting of the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), held in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. This time President Aliyev showed up, but in a clear snub to Russia, Prime Minister Pashinyan did not.

The likely venue is Georgia. In late 2021, it refused to take part in a 3+3 format, where the three regional powers Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were to meet with the three outside powers Iran, Russia and Turkey. Tbilisi argued that negotiations should be left to the three regional powers. On October 8, 2023, President Aliyev held a meeting in Tbilisi with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. On October 26, 2023, at the 4th Tbilisi Silk Road Forum in Tbilisi, prime ministers from regional powers Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, also in Tbilisi, met and Prime Minister Pashinyan proclaimed a peace deal would be signed “in the coming months.”

Given that Turkey is now emerging as a regional hegemon, the future will be shaped by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strategic priorities in positioning Turkey as a regional energy hub and in securing its access to markets in Central Asia without passing through Iran. Both highlight relations with Azerbaijan, which in turn means that opening the Zangezur corridor to link Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhichevan exclave, crossing Armenian territory, becomes a Turkish priority.

President Erdogan has played a deliberately opaque game. First, he wanted a seamless corridor that would be beyond Armenian sovereignty. Next, he suggested that Armenian checkpoints would be accepted, and the latest is that a corridor may be drawn to Nakhchivan via Iran (pandering to Tehran’s strong objections to a pan-Turkic corridor). In mid-October, he suggested that “If Armenia honors its commitments, especially the opening of the Zangezur corridor, then Turkey will step-by-step normalize relations.”

What is quite clear is that Russia will have no further role to play. According to the trilateral agreement that was signed in 2020, envisioning an opening of Zangezur, it was stipulated that Russian border guards would be in control. In a recent statement, however, Prime Minister Pashinyan stated that “no third power should have control over any territory of Armenia.”

Georgia in contrast will play a vital role. Apart from being a possible venue for peace talks, it is of great strategic relevance to Russia. As the Ukrainian armed forces are pushing the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of its bases on Crimea, the Kremlin needs to find an alternative. Given that its port at Novorossiysk is too small, it is looking at a port in Abkhazia, which is a de facto Russian vassal state. While Georgia cries foul in public, the current government may play along.

For industry-specific scenarios and bespoke geopolitical intelligence, contact us and we will provide you with more information about our advisory services.

A Hamas police vehicle was struck in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Wednesday evening in what Palestinian media reported as a targeted assassination by the IDF.

According to the reports, Hamas police’s special forces head, Majdi Abd al-Aal, was killed in the suspected attack.

דיווח: חוסל מג’די עבד אלעאל, מפקד הכוחות המיוחדים של משטרת רפיח בחמאס! pic.twitter.com/6G4zAx94Sm

— יענקי כהן | Yanki Coen (@yankicoen) February 7, 2024

Israel has no concrete plans to minimize civilian deaths in Rafah in the case the IDF decides to launch an offensive into the southern Gaza city, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing a top Israeli military commander.

Brig.-Gen. Dan Goldfuss, commander of the 98th Division, reportedly said earlier this week that his division would work on evacuation plans “if and when” he is told to launch an invasion.

Palestinians at the site of a destroyed police car after it was hit from an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, on February 7, 2024 (credit: ATIA MOHAMMED/FLASH90)

CNN reported that the information divulged by Goldfuss was still relevant as of Wednesday afternoon.

Israel will ‘coordinate with Egypt’ on Rafah invasion

Earlier this week, an Israeli official said on Sunday that the IDF would coordinate with Egypt and seek ways of evacuating most of the displaced people northward ahead of any ground sweep of Rafah.

Advertisement

However, despite the steady flow of reports in recent weeks that the IDF would immediately take action with ground troops in Rafah, The Jerusalem Post has learned that such moves could still take time and significant negotiations.

Multiple sources have said that an IDF move in Rafah is not on the immediate horizon, even as Israel has made some progress in negotiations with Egypt over the issue.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that he is “especially alarmed” by reports that the IDF intends to focus next on Rafah in Gaza.

“Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,” Guterres told the 193-member UN General Assembly as he again called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.

The rise and fall of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin offers intriguing insight into the dangerous state of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

A man sits near the grave of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash, at Porokhovskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia, on August 30, 2023. © Getty Images

Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine brought to the fore one of the murkiest features of its military forces, that of the Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner and its firebrand leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The mutiny that Prigozhin instigated on June 28 was a truly unique event. It was striking that the leader of a mercenary outfit may have come close to seizing the Kremlin.

The story offers two intriguing facts. One is that the Wagner forces succeeded in swiftly seizing the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, which coordinates the war against Ukraine, and the other is they managed to advance close to Moscow without encountering any opposition. The enigma lies in how these two facts may be explained.

One possibility is that Prigozhin had support from inside the military establishment, where many commanders have been frustrated by how poorly the war has been prosecuted. That suggests that another military insurrection could be in the cards. Another possibility is that the absence of a response was due to a paralysis of power. When Russian President Vladimir Putin was too terrified to issue orders, and senior officials were scrambling their private jets to escape, senior military commanders may have opted to stand by. This indicates that the center of power may be about to implode.

No matter what the real story was, a third fact is that less than two months later, Prigozhin was dead. He met his end on August 23, 2023, when his private plane crashed en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg. All 10 on board perished, including three crew members and Prigozhin’s right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin. DNA tests allegedly showed that the human remains matched the list of passengers. That was the formal end of the Wagner saga.

The fallout of Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia

Russian arms exports in a tailspin

The problem-ridden development of a Russia-Iran axis

The rise and fall of Prigozhin and his PMC speaks volumes about the state of the Russian Armed Forces, the nature of the political system that Mr. Putin has created to cement his power and the culture of extreme violence that permeates not only the armed forces but Russian society.

The use of private military contractors is not specific to Russia. During its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States made use of the Blackwater company (rebranded as Academi), and other countries have similar arrangements. What is specific about the case of the Russian Wagner group is its place and role within the hierarchy of power.

One of the peculiarities is that private military companies are formally illegal in Russia. Given the general Russian contempt for the rule of law, this may seem an irrelevant observation, but it has played an important role in how Wagner developed. Having no legal rights, Prigozhin was dependent on playing the games of the Russian underworld. Up until his death, he showed excellent skills in doing so.

The Wagner group was created under the aegis of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. It was headquartered at a well-known GRU base. During combat, it had access to GRU airlift, and its wounded were treated in GRU hospitals. That tells us that the GRU viewed Wagner as a valuable addition to its already considerable capabilities.

The first signs of Wagner mercenaries in action appeared during the war in Syria. There, they proved useful, undertaking dirty operations that were beyond the pale even for the otherwise brutal official Russian army. Following their appearance in that war, Wagner mercenaries would appear both in Ukraine, where they won a reputation as a more effective fighting force than the regular army, and in Africa, where unsavory regimes have found them helpful as protection.

These developments provide valuable insights into the state of the Russian Armed Forces. That a mercenary unit like Wagner was tasked with frontline duties in Ukraine should not be taken as a sign that it constitutes a professional fighting force. The only case where it had been in combat with a modern professional military was in 2018 in Syria, when around 500 pro-Syrian government troops and Russian mercenaries got into a nearly four-hour-long firefight with about 40 members of the U.S. Delta Force and Rangers at a small outpost near the city of Deir ez-Zor. That encounter ended with a spectacular defeat for the attackers who suffered massive casualties – 200 to 300 dead – while none of the Americans were harmed. The incident proved that a band of thugs parading as a military force is easy prey for a truly professional combat unit.

Wagner personnel winning a reputation as better soldiers than the regular Russian armed divisions, outperforming even the elite airborne forces, sends an important message about how a Russian army would perform in combat against NATO. This insight has most probably been taken to heart by the Russian military command, if not by the Kremlin itself.

A screen grab captured from a video shows Russian Wagner mercenaries in an unspecified desert area of Africa on August 21, 2023. The image comes two days before the private military company’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in a plane crash between Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia. He bragged that Wagner had made Russia “even greater” on all continents. © Getty Images

Another important message from the Wagner saga concerns Prigozhin’s personal career. Having started in petty crime, he moved into catering and ended up as the leader of a mercenary force that won global notoriety. His catering skills won him a reputation as “Putin’s chef” (and an even more derogatory nickname of “garcon” among envious oligarchs), meaning he had gained the trust and friendship of the country’s most powerful man. His violent end showed that there were limits to that friendship.

As in any good mafia story, much, if not all, had to do with money and turf battles. Although Prigozhin had accumulated a massive fortune, he likely had legal title only to the catering business. The message is that a person in Russia does not get wealthy without protection, and protection comes at a price that is measured in blind loyalty.

In mafia jargon, by virtue of his friendship with President Putin, Prigozhin should have been untouchable, and so it was – for a time. It is important to note that in all the videos he published in the weeks leading up to his mutiny, hurling gross insults against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, he was scrupulous in never mentioning Mr. Putin.

The central question that permeates all speculation about what really happened with the mutiny and its fallout concerns how it could be that Prigozhin overstepped so catastrophically that he had to be eliminated (unless his death was an accident.)

When Wagner made its move into Africa, where it would be making lots of blood money, it expanded into novel territory. By far, the most credible explanation of the mutiny is that the GRU resented how Prigozhin was enriching himself. He was their creation, and perhaps he was not showing gratitude. A decision was made to muscle him out so that the GRU could rake in the money for itself.

As the Kremlin loses both authority and control, a variety of players will resort to violence to protect their turfs.

It was when Prigozhin learned that his saga might be coming to an end that his increasingly grating public videos started appearing. His rambling complaints about how the military leadership was not giving him enough ammunition were a mere cover. When the regular military took over the Wagner forces, it transpired that they had plenty of ammunition. The challenge for Prigozhin was to get the GRU to withdraw from his turf, and he likely calculated that Mr. Putin would cover his back.

As it turned out, that was a grave miscalculation. In relations with President Putin, money matters far less than loyalty. Prigozhin made the fatal mistake of publicly attacking two senior officials who had demonstrated boundless devotion to the president. With his subsequent mutiny, he had to capture the Kremlin or perish.

The Wagner saga provides two important insights into what will happen next. The first is that agreements with Mr. Putin are of little to no value. The essence of this insight has been expressed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who suggests there is no reason to believe President Putin will behave differently in negotiations about the war against Ukraine: “As for the calls for negotiations with Putin, anyone who asks about this should ask not us, but Prigozhin. He had a conflict with Putin, he held successful negotiations with Putin, ended the conflict, agreed on security guarantees and then Putin killed him.”

The second insight concerns the premium that is placed on loyalty and the retribution that will follow any form of perceived insubordination. At the time of the rebellion, Mr. Putin vowed that the response from the state would be harsh. A period of total confusion followed when speculation about the fate of Prigozhin was rife, that the two may even have met in person and that a continued existence for Wagner in Belarus, under the protection of President Alexander Lukashenko, was being touted, spooking fears in Poland and Lithuania.

The pattern of privatized violence that Yevgeny Prigozhin set will outlast him to the great detriment of the Russian state.

It was a ruse, of course, designed to sow confusion and create false security while preparations were being made for the end game. Also, it was a classic application of the maxim that you must keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Originally formulated by the great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu around 500 B.C., over the centuries it has been repeated by sources that range from Niccolo Machiavelli in “The Prince” to Mario Puzo in his novels about the Mafia family Corleone. It is probably the latter that best explains the true nature of the Russian mafia state, with Mr. Putin acting as capo di tutti capi (boss of bosses).

When the time came for the curtain call, it was both swift and decisive. Once the leaders of the Wagner group had been eliminated, the hammer of retribution was also brought down on their underlings. Graves of fallen Wagner mercenaries were bulldozed and covered with concrete. Wounded Wagner fighters were thrown out of hospitals with their treatments unfinished, their payments for medical care were terminated and payments and benefits to their families stopped.

The message was loud and clear. You simply do not challenge the man at the top. The sledgehammer that Prigozhin had made into his trademark came down on his own head. He had banked on being protected by his friendship with Mr. Putin, and he got it terribly wrong.

For industry-specific scenarios and bespoke geopolitical intelligence, contact us and we will provide you with more information about our advisory services.