By Azerbaijan.US Editorial Board
For nearly three decades, Moscow cast itself as the self-appointed “security guarantor” of the South Caucasus. That illusion is now collapsing. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), once central to Russia’s influence over its post-Soviet allies, has descended into paralysis.
Russian “peacekeepers,” deployed in 2020 as supposed guarantors of regional stability, have quietly withdrawn without achieving a single lasting result.
And Armenia – the country that once embodied Moscow’s foothold in the region – is turning its gaze toward Brussels and Washington, rather than the Kremlin.
What seemed impossible five years ago has become geopolitical reality: Armenia is walking away from Russia. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, long derided in Moscow as “ungrateful” and “Westernized,” is now openly dismantling his country’s dependency on the Russian security umbrella.
His decision may appear risky, but it reflects a sober reading of facts. Russia’s promises have failed. Its army is trapped in Ukraine, its diplomacy isolated, and its leverage over Yerevan – once absolute – has all but vanished.
Pashinyan’s pivot is not rebellion; it is self-preservation. For years, Armenia’s overreliance on Russia delivered only disappointment: dwindling arms supplies, silence from the CSTO during border clashes, and an economy tethered to a declining power. When Yerevan appealed to Moscow for protection amid escalating tensions, the answer was indifference.
Today, Pashinyan has little choice but to seek new partners. His government has suspended participation in CSTO events, welcomed a European Union civilian mission along its border, and deepened dialogue with the United States. The symbolism is unmistakable – Armenia is beginning to think for itself.
Western observers have called Pashinyan’s move “bold.” In truth, it is a long-overdue correction of a geopolitical illusion. While Armenia spent decades treating dependency as security, Azerbaijan quietly built the opposite model: resilience through sovereignty.
Baku invested in its army, diversified its defense partnerships with Turkey, Israel, and others, and maintained a balanced foreign policy that never surrendered autonomy to any single power. Where Armenia outsourced protection, Azerbaijan cultivated deterrence. Where Russia tried to control outcomes through coercion, Baku mastered the art of leverage through competence.
Russia’s decline across the region is no longer subtle. The CSTO has been exposed as a hollow alliance incapable of defending even its most loyal member. Moscow’s so-called “peacekeeping mission” in Karabakh ended not through diplomacy but through irrelevance, as Azerbaijan restored full sovereignty over its territories in 2023.
The Kremlin, preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, has neither the capacity nor the credibility to act as arbiter anywhere else. Even its closest partners – Kazakhstan, Belarus, and others – now hedge their bets, pursuing their own paths rather than Moscow’s dictates.
The South Caucasus is feeling the aftershocks of that vacuum. Armenia’s disengagement from Russia will undoubtedly reshape regional dynamics, but it also exposes a broader truth: post-Soviet dependency is no longer a viable survival strategy.
As Yerevan experiments with new alignments, Baku continues to demonstrate what mature statecraft looks like – pragmatic, measured, and deeply strategic. Azerbaijan’s leadership has understood something Russia and Armenia both missed for years: geography may define borders, but governance defines strength.
Instead of chasing political symbolism, Azerbaijan has focused on real connectivity – the Zangezur Corridor, the Middle Corridor, the expansion of the Southern Gas Corridor – building the physical and economic networks that tie East and West together.
These are not slogans but systems. Each kilometer of new railway, each pipeline, each reconstructed city in Karabakh is a quiet rejection of imperial logic. While Russia exports instability, Azerbaijan exports energy, infrastructure, and trust.
Pashinyan’s attempt to break free from Moscow may still face internal resistance, but it also confirms what Baku has long proven in practice: independence is not granted; it is built.
Azerbaijan’s success in restoring its territorial integrity, rebuilding liberated regions, and positioning itself as a transport and energy hub shows the dividends of a foreign policy rooted in realism, not nostalgia.
For the South Caucasus, this is a historic inflection point. Russia’s role as regional arbiter has expired, and with it, the old architecture of dependency. What emerges instead is a new geometry of cooperation – one where regional actors set their own priorities.
A pragmatic Azerbaijan, a reforming Armenia seeking genuine sovereignty, and a confident Turkey expanding economic and security integration are redefining what stability looks like in the post-Russian Caucasus.
The contrast could not be clearer. Russia’s influence has withered because it relied on coercion, not cooperation. Its power was built on fear, not legitimacy. Azerbaijan, by contrast, has built strength through competence – stability born of self-reliance, not subservience. While others gambled on empires, Baku invested in endurance.
As Moscow clings to illusions of grandeur and Yerevan struggles to find its footing, one truth stands out: Azerbaijan’s model of pragmatic sovereignty has prevailed.
The South Caucasus no longer needs a protector; it needs partners. And in that new order, Azerbaijan has already secured its place – not as a client of anyone’s empire, but as an anchor of regional reason.
