Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently announced that Russia was fine with letting Armenia and Azerbaijan work out their own peace deal without Kremlin mediation. But it appears Russia can’t help itself from meddling, as Moscow seeks to preserve a controlling level of influence in the Caucasus. 

Armenian law enforcement officials announced September 18 that they had broken up a Russian-sponsored effort to foment an uprising aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government and installing a more Kremlin-friendly leadership in Yerevan. Three individuals were reportedly in custody, and authorities were still seeking four other suspects connected to the alleged plot. 

According to the preliminary official account, the suspects were recruiting Armenian men to join an armed group that would serve as the backbone of a coup attempt. Recruits were supposedly being sent to a training camp in Russia. Armenian security services are said to have uncovered the plot after receiving tips from individuals who had been approached about joining the armed group, but who refused. 

Amid the swirl of a Russia-sponsored coup against Pashinyan, the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process is maintaining a ‘stop-start’ dynamic. 

During the latest round of talks, Armenia proposed to sign a peace deal on the points the two sides have already agreed upon, with the remaining differences to be settled later. According to Pashinyan, the countries have agreed on 13 of 16 points that are currently included in the draft peace agreement.  

The Armenian proposal followed up on the recent agreement between Yerevan and Baku to set aside discussion of the Zangezur corridor, a proposed transit route that would connect Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhchivan exclave via Armenian territory. Differences over Zangezur had been one of the major impediments to a peace deal. 

Azerbaijan flatly rejected the Armenia idea. “In order for the peace agreement to be sustainable and successful, it is necessary to settle the contentious issues remaining in a number of areas,” the Report.az outlet quoted Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Aykhan Hajizade as saying. 

The main unresolved issue at this stage is Azerbaijan’s insistence that Armenia amend its constitution to clearly acknowledge Baku’s sovereignty over the Nagorno-Karabakh, which the Azerbaijani military reconquered in September 2023. 

The Zangezur issue has played a central role in the escalation of enmity between Russia and Armenia in recent weeks. The Armenian-Azerbaijani decision to set aside negotiations on Zangezur angered Russia, which would have gained responsibility for maintaining the transit route’s security, thus giving Moscow a major lever of influence over geopolitical developments in the Caucasus. For example, Russia could potentially use its role as the keeper of peace in any Zangezur corridor as leverage in trying to disrupt or prevent Armenia from deepening economic and security relationships with the United States and European Union. 

Now, with the Zangezur corridor a distant possibility and with the war in Ukraine draining Moscow of resources, Russia is scrambling to find a way to frustrate Armenian efforts to complete a geopolitical pivot towards the West. Yerevan’s turn away from Russia began after the Azerbaijani reconquest of Karabakh, as Armenian leaders accused Russia of failing to fulfill security guarantees to defend Armenia’s sovereignty.