Political

Security

International

Instability in domestic politics

In February 2020 snap parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan – seemingly intended to counter unfavourable comparisons with Armenia’s 2018 democratic breakthrough – did not result in the changes that many observers expected. In Armenia, controversy surrounded Prime Minister Pashinyan’s efforts to indict figures associated with the previous regime under the Republic Party of Armenia (RPA), notably former president Robert Kocharian, on charges associated with civil disorder in March 2008. Kocharian’s trial was the first of a former incumbent in the post-Soviet space, becoming a point of tension in Pashinyan’s already tense relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Tensions and symbolic politics

Bilateral relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan had already deteriorated early in 2020. This signalled the definitive end to a perceived opening in 2019 following an announcement by the Minsk Group that both countries’ foreign ministers had agreed, after a meeting in Paris in January, on the necessity of ‘preparing populations for peace’. This rhetoric was already faltering by summer 2019 as no breakthrough materialised. A tense public meeting between President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan at the Munich Security Conference in February 2020 ended in familiar historical claim and counter-claim. In May, the inauguration of de facto Karabakh leader Harutyunyan in Shusha (spelled Shushi by Armenians), a crucial symbolic site for Azerbaijanis, and announcements suggesting that Shusha could become the territory’s political capital, sparked offense in Azerbaijan. This was compounded in June when approval was given for a third road across the occupied territories connecting southern Armenia and southern Karabakh, casting further doubt on the likelihood of these territories ever passing back to Azerbaijani jurisdiction.

Clashes along the international Armenia–Azerbaijan border

On 12 July 2020, cross-border clashes broke out along the international Armenia–Azerbaijan border in the Tavush/Tovuz area, killing 17 – mostly Azerbaijanis – over the following days. Protests calling for war began near Baku after 12 July, and escalated after two high-ranking officers, Major-General Polad Hashimov and Colonel Ilgar Mirzayev, were killed. Reactions to these deaths resulted in an unprecedented, spontaneous street protest in Baku on 14 July demanding more muscular military action against Armenia. Azerbaijani foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov was dismissed following severe public criticism from President Aliyev of the OSCE-mediated negotiations process. Mammadyarov was replaced by education minister Jeyhun Bayramov.

Increased Turkish–Azerbaijani cooperation

Increased Turkish support for Azerbaijan was evident in the aftermath of the July clashes, with Azerbaijani and Turkish defence officials meeting repeatedly and visibly, and senior Turkish officials, including Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar, publicly issuing threats to Armenia.⁷ The full extent of Turkish military support to Azerbaijan in 2020 remains unknown and contested. Following joint military exercises with the Azerbaijani armed forces in July, substantial materiel and hundreds of servicemen and military advisers reportedly remained in the country in readiness for subsequent deployment.⁸ Some of these may have operated newly delivered Bayraktar TB2 drones during the subsequent war, which were used to significant tactical effect. While Ankara and Baku deny having employed Syrian foreign fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh, their presence in the region was widely reported in international media, and the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights claimed that over 540 Syrian mercenaries died in hostilities between September and November.⁹

War breaks out

Azerbaijan launched large-scale offensive operations along the Line of Contact on 27 September 2020, focused on the Armenians’ more vulnerable southern flank, striking population centres and spurring intense fighting. By mid-October Azerbaijan had made substantial territorial gains, wresting control of a number of Armenian-controlled districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, bringing the town of Hadrut in Nagorno-Karabakh proper under its control, and advancing along the Azerbaijani–Iranian border. On 8 November, Azerbaijan cemented its victory by taking the symbolically and strategically important town of Shusha. After several failed attempts at a ceasefire, the fighting was finally ended by a Russian-brokered trilateral agreement on 10 November after 44 days of war. This agreement was enforced by a Russian peacekeeping mission rapidly deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh.¹⁰

Human rights and humanitarian

The 2020 war, though short, wrought a devastating humanitarian impact. There were some 6,000 confirmed fatalities among Armenian and Azerbaijani combatants at the time of writing, while the total is most likely higher than 7,000, with more than 10,000 wounded, in addition to some 170 fatalities among civilians.¹¹ Approximately 130,000 people were displaced, some 90,000 of them Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.¹² Numerous reports of human-rights violations against civilians and war crimes were recorded. Hundreds of prisoners were taken during and just after the fighting, with many Armenian prisoners still unaccounted for as of the time of writing. Indiscriminate attacks hitting hospitals, schools, religious sites and other civilian infrastructure were also recorded on each side of the conflict, as well as the use of cluster munitions, which pose long-term risks to local populations of being maimed or killed by explosive remnants. With civilians crowding into basements and temporary accommodation to escape the fighting, the war coincided with an eightfold increase in COVID-19 cases in Armenia.¹³ Meanwhile, the return of Azerbaijanis displaced by the First Nagorno-Karabakh War to former front-line areas now under Azerbaijani control was constrained by extensive destruction in these areas and the presence of a substantial number of mines and unexploded ordnance.

Political stability

In Armenia, the defeat created an enduring political crisis. Pashinyan’s signing of the agreement which saw Armenia turn over significant swathes of territory on top of that already lost militarily to Azerbaijan was met with fury from large segments of the population. His continued presence in post sparked months of protest and even the prospect of civil–military tensions as senior army officers openly called for his resignation, until he conceded to holding snap elections, scheduled for June 2021. By contrast, military victory further strengthened the position of Aliyev in Azerbaijan, despite escalating restrictions on civil liberties during the coronavirus pandemic.

Economic and social

The war further radicalised already polarised societies. In both Armenia and Azerbaijan, pro-peace voices were silenced through harassment and targeting by the authorities. Real-time coverage of events on the front line and videos showing summary killings and beatings circulated across social media, generating public outrage. The war had devastating economic impacts on all parties involved, and particularly on the local economy in Nagorno-Karabakh itself, which had a small but reportedly vibrant economy estimated to be worth $713m in 2019.¹⁴ The fighting caused heavy damage to infrastructure, including the loss of road links to Armenia on which the territory formerly depended, which will heavily constrain Armenia’s ability to provide needed resources and have long-term impacts on Nagorno-Karabakh’s viability as an economic entity.

Relations with neighbouring and international partners and geopolitical implications

The 2020 war established significant new geopolitical dynamics in the South Caucasus as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict became yet another theatre where Russia and Turkey are actively engaged. Russia now shares responsibility with Turkey for managing the ceasefire monitoring centre, located in Azerbaijan’s Agdam district to the east of Nagorno-Karabakh. This Russian–Turkish duopoly represents a new ‘regionalisation’ of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with Moscow and Ankara working together in a symbiotic relationship to marginalise Euro-Atlantic actors and other international organisations in general and the OSCE in particular.

Turkey’s penetration of the South Caucasus reciprocates Russia’s own entry into the conflicts in Libya and Syria. It also represents an assertive challenge to Russia’s presumed hegemony in the former-Soviet sphere. While playing only a secondary role in monitoring the ceasefire, Turkey nevertheless stands to benefit strategically from the new guarantee of transit across southern Armenia that will connect it to Azerbaijan and Central Asia – assuming that sufficient momentum is sustained for the corridor to be constructed.

If no longer the sole outside player, Russia remains the dominant one. The war’s outcome permitted a new military presence in the South Caucasus, and substantially increased Russian leverage over both Azerbaijan and Armenia, while excluding Euro-Atlantic powers. Russia’s responses demonstrated significant tactical flexibility and successfully averted outcomes less favourable to Moscow. Yet Russia’s insertion into the context both represented a substantial escalation of its commitments and posed new challenges for its bilateral relationship with each of the parties. Russia will likely face countervailing pressures regarding its presence, with Azerbaijan wishing to limit its duration and Armenia to extend it.

Other neighbouring states struggled to contain overspill from the conflict and maintain friendly relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Georgia’s offer to broker peace talks was not accepted, and the country was later accused in Armenian media reports of facilitating the transit of Azerbaijani military supplies.¹⁵ Renewed Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict also threatened radicalisation among Georgia’s own Armenian and Azerbaijani national-minority populations. The strengthening of Russia’s presence in the South Caucasus is seen in Georgia through the lens of Tbilisi’s own territorial conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia/Tskhinvali district, which are recognised by the vast majority in the international community as parts of Georgia but by Russia and a handful of aligned states as independent from Georgia. The prospect of an alternative corridor running through Armenia also threatens the monopoly that Georgia has held on east–west transit since the 1990s.

Iran also offered good offices for Armenian–Azerbaijani negotiations to no avail. Iran’s own ethnically Azerbaijani population – located in the northwest of the country just south of the conflict zone – increasingly voiced support for Azerbaijan in the 2020 war. While Iran’s political leadership responded to pro-Azerbaijani protests in Tabriz and other cities with rhetorical support for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, increased Turkish presence in the South Caucasus and the significant role played by Israeli weaponry in Azerbaijan’s military victory were not welcomed in Tehran.

Political scenarios

The political outlook remained extremely uncertain. The 10 November 2020 ceasefire declaration resolved only some of the issues previously under negotiation in the OSCE-mediated Minsk Group process. Official rhetoric suggests that Azerbaijan considers the conflict resolved as it focuses on the rehabilitation of the de-occupied territories. However, the absence from the ceasefire declaration of the core issue that drives the conflict, the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the marginalisation of the OSCE Minsk Group negotiations, drive Armenian concerns over whether and how this issue can be reopened. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan abandoned belligerent postures. The post-war situation continued to be inflamed by several issues, notably Azerbaijan’s detention of dozens of prisoners amid reports of their deaths and torture;¹⁶ Azerbaijani fatalities owing to landmines in de-occupied areas; and the alteration and destruction of Armenian cultural and community heritage in areas restored to Azerbaijani control.

Escalation potential and conflict-related risks

While the ceasefire largely held, the new status quo brought various security risks. The mandate of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh remained to be defined, and while renewable if neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan objects, it had a formal five-year lifespan. Further ambiguities surrounded the Armenian armed forces in the territory: while all its units were required to withdraw in the 10 November 2020 declaration, the status of Karabakh-Armenian armed units of the NKDA remained unclear. The 2020 war and its outcome dissolved the previous context of long-distance segregation of Armenians and Azerbaijanis. In a variety of theatres from Nagorno-Karabakh itself to southern areas on either side of the international Armenia-Azerbaijan border, representatives of each nationality were brought into closer proximity than at any time since the early 1990s.

Prospects for peace

Prospects for a negotiated peace remain dim, with Armenia and Azerbaijan continuing to hold opposite views and the stalling of the formal negotiations process mediated by the OSCE’s Minsk Group. In the absence of a multilateral peace process, Russia continues to pursue a trilateral format aimed at implementing the measures foreseen in the 10 November 2020 declaration, including a working group tasked with identifying new infrastructure and communications projects.

Sources: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation; UNHCR; IISS

Strategic implications and global influences

The 2020 war marked a significant inflection point in the history of the conflict by resituating it as a theatre of contestation by regional powers Russia and Turkey, rather than a theatre of mediation and conflict resolution by an international coalition. Regionalisation was demonstrated in the post-war period by Russia’s leading role in negotiations with Armenia and Azerbaijan, overseeing the implementation of the 10 November 2020 agreement. It remained unclear whether, under what conditions, and with what agenda the OSCE Minsk Group talks might resume.