Putin's Azerbaijan Visit Signals Russia's Waning Influence In The South Caucasus

Russian President Vladimir Putin, making his first visit to Azerbaijan in six years, marveled at how Baku, the capital city, had developed. "It's an oasis, I would say, in the region," he said at an August 19 meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev.

It was an apt phrase.

In the past few years, Azerbaijan has indeed emerged as the most welcoming spot for the Russian leader in a tumultuous South Caucasus region. Armenia is rapidly turning against its erstwhile Russian ally, while Georgia -- in spite of its own current crisis with the West -- remains deeply unfriendly territory for Putin.

At home, meanwhile, Putin is dealing with the unexpected headache of a Ukrainian military incursion into the Kursk region that the Russian military has not been able to turn back.

In Baku, a beaming Aliyev welcomed Putin into his residence with a hug, and first lady and Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva gave him a kiss. Putin marveled at the "family atmosphere" in which he was received.

But there are limits to the Aliyevs' hospitality, and Baku has been playing multiple sides as part of its well-established multivector foreign policy. In the Caucasus of 2024, though, that may be the best Putin can get.

Behind the smiles and hugs, Azerbaijan has been pushing to shut Russia out of regional politics in which, until recently, Moscow had been deeply involved.

For decades, Russia -- along with the United States and European countries -- played a key role in diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. But Azerbaijan, believing the conflict-resolution process had become a venue for outside powers to exert their influence in the region, has in recent months managed to push Russia and other foreign powers out of the process and to work on a peace treaty with Armenia one-on-one.

In another setback for Russia, Azerbaijan also recently announced it was removing a contentious issue from the treaty negotiations: a transportation link between mainland Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan, through southern Armenia, known by its Azerbaijani name, the Zangezur Corridor.

While that route is of critical importance to Azerbaijan, it also represents a chance for Russia to gain a new foothold in the region. Armenia and Azerbaijan initially agreed that the route would be guarded by Russia's state security service, and Moscow still harbor hopes such a provision will be fixed in the final agreement. In that context, Putin's comments in Baku on the peace negotiations appeared a bit plaintive.

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"If we can do something so that we can sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan and Armenia, complete the delimitation and demarcation of the border, as we discussed a lot, unblock logistics and the economy, we would be very glad," Putin said.

Other, even more difficult, issues weren't mentioned.

In May, a senior Russian official announced that Moscow hoped to open a consulate in Karabakh, the territory at the heart of the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan now fully controls the territory, after its September 2023 offensive resulted in the flight of the entire population of 100,000 ethnic Armenians. But the news about a prospective Russian consulate set off alarm bells among Azerbaijanis, who saw in it a hidden Kremlin agenda to reassert Russian -- and possibly Armenian -- influence in the territory.

Ahead of Putin's visit, the Russian news agency Tass interviewed the Azerbaijani ambassador to Moscow, Polad Bulbuloglu, and asked him about the issue.

Bulbuloglu gently signaled Azerbaijan's resistance to the idea, noting vaguely that in Azerbaijan "the field of work for consulates is limited." Following the Tass interview, Bulbuloglu followed up with an Azerbaijani government-affiliated website, Haqqin, and issued a fastidious correction that again delicately signaled Baku's resistance: "I didn't say that a Russian consulate might appear in Karabakh. I said that the issue is in the discussion stage."

Aliyev and Putin did not mention the consulate in their public remarks.

Meanwhile, as the two leaders met in Baku, in another part of the city, an erstwhile adviser of Putin, Ruben Vardanian, sat in prison, one of several officials from the former Armenian-backed unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic who were arrested following Azerbaijan's retaking of that territory last year.

Ahead of Putin's visit, the Union of Armenians in Russia sent him an appeal asking him to raise the issue of the Karabakh prisoners. That issue, too, was unmentioned.

It has been easier to find common ground on economic relations between the two countries. When Aliyev visited Moscow in April, the focus was on expanding a transportation network connecting Russia, via Azerbaijan, to Iran and ports on the Persian Gulf. The project is of critical strategic importance to Russia, which is trying to redirect its trade links to the east and south after its relations with the West collapsed following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

While Azerbaijan stands to benefit from the trade expansion, as well, a brief exchange between the two leaders in Baku made Russia look like the more eager party. Total trade turnover between the two states stands at "a little more than $4 billion -- a good number," Aliyev said.

"But it doesn't correspond to the potential of our capacities," Putin added.

When the August 19 meetings concluded, the two announced they had signed agreements on topics like food security and labor inspection. A new Russian-Azerbaijani University will be opened in Baku, and the two countries will start joint production of oil tankers.

To some Azerbaijanis, that modest takeaway exposed what they saw as the real reason for the visit: a chance for Putin to look like he had allies when he is actually internationally isolated.