In September 2024, the Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program focused on two broad regional clusters, namely Russia and the South Caucasus.
Gela Vasadze reviews the expectations in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia from the upcoming US elections. To Armenia, the victory of a Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, looks more profitable, since the US Armenian lobby has much influence on the Democrats, acting through the US Congress with the support from Greek and Assyrian groups. Harris recognizes the Armenian Genocide and is under pressure to increase her support for the Armenian cause (regarding the non-reconciliatory policy towards Turkey and Azerbaijan). Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, has no sympathies for either Azerbaijan or Armenia and under his administration, the Armenian diaspora’s positions have weakened. If the Armenian lobby might control the State Department, “for the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. intelligence agencies, Azerbaijan is much more important (…) because of its role in the Middle East.” No election outcome would radically change the situation in the Caucasus, but the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace agreement depends on the US policy. As to Georgia, it “doesn’t have a powerful lobby, strategic geopolitical position or natural resources to sustain U.S. interest.” Currently, the neoconservatives in Tbilisi, advocating for closer cooperation with Washington, are weakened. Many believe that the victory of Trump, because of his isolationism, could be more advantageous to the incumbent pro-Russian government. However, he also most likely would not “ignore Georgia’s integration into Russia’s economic and political system while maintaining the illusion of a Euro-Atlantic course,” since there are “no serious political groups in the U.S. that support the current Georgian government.”
Joseph Epstein analyses recent dynamics of the Russian-Iranian relations, underscoring that, though “Russia and Iran both need each other and have thus been necessitated to cooperate,” nevertheless, “Moscow and Iran have fundamental differences that are likely unsolvable and there is very little trust between the two countries.” Among these differences, are the positions with regard to the Zangezur corridor (“a proposed route connecting mainland Azerbaijan to the Nakhichevan enclave through Armenian territory along the Iranian border”) and Syria. As to the former, Iran strongly opposes this route since it will put its northern border under complete control of Azerbaijan and Turkey. When Russia supported the corridor’s creation, hoping to preserve some influence in the area, Iranian officials reacted negatively, and Russia had to sacrifice its interests – which demonstrated that “Moscow’s war in Ukraine has caused Tehran to gain the upper hand in the relationship.” As to Syria, Russia wants to see it as a stable vassal, while Iran hopes to engage it, as a part of the “axis of resistance,” into the greater regional war. However, the political reasons to cooperate (fighting wars against the West and isolation) still outweigh the existing discrepancies.
The paper by Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman provides a “bridge” between the “Russian” and “Caucasian” parts of this month’s research, highlighting other regional implications of the Zangezur corridor’s problem. The author assumes that Iran feared the loss of direct access to Armenian territory, the role of an alternative route from the PRC to Europe, and the increase of Turkish influence in the post-Soviet area. Moscow appears to view relations with Tehran, Baku, and Ankara as equally significant, necessitating a delicate balance between their divergent positions. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities are pressuring Yerevan to abandon the corridor idea. Inside Armenia, the historical issue of Zangezur is a “major point of contention between modern Armenian nationalism-revanchism and pro-Western liberalism,” with the incumbent government representing the latter but having to make concessions to the former. Since Israel “does not want Armenia (…) to fall into Iran’s sphere of influence,” its logical interest is “to continue strategic cooperation with Azerbaijan and support the establishment of the Zangezur corridor,” even though it is going to benefit Turkey as well. The Jewish state cannot “endorse Armenian efforts, based on nationalist ideas, to further utilize strategic ties with Iran to counterbalance pressure from Azerbaijan and Turkey,” a policy that “contradicts the liberal direction of Pashinyan’s government, which seeks closer ties with the West.”
Velvl Chernin draws our readership’s attention to the ethnopolitical factor in the perception of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation. He emphasizes that historically, people perceive “the entire Belgorod oblast, as well as the south of Kursk and Voronezh oblasts” as part of the historical area known as Sloboda Ukraine (Eastern Slobozhanshchina). Popular culture, regional dialects, and the birthplace of prominent Ukrainian national movement figures like historian Mykola Kostomarov and poet Yevhen Pluzhnyk in the Voronezh province all reflect this. In late 1917, Belgorod and Sudzha became part of the Ukrainian People’s Republic but were later ceded to Soviet Russia (RSFSR) despite the demands of the Ukrainian SSR’s authorities and the Ukrainianization policies pursued there in the 1920s and the early 1930s. Chernin hypothesizes that “if the AFU’s control of the occupied territories of the Russian Federation is to last,” some “quasi-state buffer entities” might be created there as Ukrainian proxies.
Further delving into the ethnopolitical peculiarities of the Russian territories, Velvl Chernin presents his view of the state of Russian federalism. He assumes that federalist institutions in Russia have significantly weakened in recent years, and that of all ethno-territorial autonomies, “currently deprived of agency,” only the Chechen Republic headed by Ramzan Kadyrov might in fact carry out its own policy on an equal footing with Moscow. The author traces this situation back to Moscow’s wars against Chechen separatist entities in the 1990s and the early 2000s. The regional situation is unique: “The Kadyrov clan acts as a contractor for the federal government, guaranteeing the suppression of armed resistance by supporters of independence and radical Islamists in Chechnya itself and in neighboring ethno-territorial autonomies.” The region “receives enormous subsidies from the federal budget and has its own armed forces,” officially being parts of the Russian Guard, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Ministry of Defense, but in fact subordinate only to Ramzan Kadyrov. Despite not being the most effective units in the Russian-Ukrainian war (the authorities actively recruit non-Chechen contractors to formalize them as “Chechen” units), these forces may still find use for internal Russian objectives. However, in case of weakening of the Chechen leader’s personal loyalty to Putin, the “Kadyrovites” might be used in a (potentially resumed) conflict against the federal center.
Finally, Konstantin Pakhalyuk scrutinizes[6] the difficult relationships between antisemitism and islamophobia in the online rhetoric of Russian military propagandists. The respective Telegram channel administrators do not feel they have to abide by the state propaganda “in the rear,” and their “reaction to Israel’s war against Hamas has been quite cynical, accompanied not only by anti-Semitism but also outright Islamophobia.” Most often, anti-Semitism of pro-war Telegram channels is presented as “anti-Zionism” and makes part, in the context of the war in Gaza, of broader geopolitical narratives that include Ukraine and the US. On the other hand, the Middle Eastern conflict is often viewed from the “purely” military angle, and here the IDF actions might become a source of examples for criticism of the Russian military efforts, and “the old image of the uncompromising Israeli army” is used to “urge Russia to abandon all decency in its war with Ukraine.” “Top bloggers generally adhered to the po-Palestinian propaganda narrative,” which is however combined with deep-rooted Islamophobia, questioning the actual need to discursively support Hamas, viewing “the rise of pro-Palestinian sentiment among Russian Muslims” as a “betrayal of the Russian World” and Palestinian refugees – as a source of domestic terrorist threat. The latter was triggered in 2024 by a major terrorist attack in Moscow, the takeover of two detention centers, and a terror attack in Dagestan against an Orthodox church and synagogue.
It has been a year since the PSCR Program of BESA Center was inaugurated. We hope to have contributed to the understanding of regional political dynamics. Our team is going to continue informing you in the coming months about what is happening in the post-Soviet area.