In August 2025, policy papers by the PSCR program at the BESA Center focused on the conflict developments in the South Caucasus and the European part of the post-Soviet sphere.
Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin and Ariel Kogan, in their policy paper published prior to the trilateral talks between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the US, advocate against conflating the South Caucasus peace process with Azerbaijan’s potential participation in the Abraham Accords. They stress that “mandating Azerbaijan to negotiate a peace treaty with Armenia as a prerequisite for joining the Abraham Accords is unproductive,” since relations with Azerbaijan already hold significant strategic value without being tied to any additional peace agreements. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is not directly tied to the conflict in the Middle East, which is the focus of the Accords; also, other participant countries have never faced similar preconditions, which raises an issue of double standards. Also, “preconditioning Azerbaijan’s entry into the Abraham Accords on reconciliation with Armenia provides Iran with another tool to derail Trump’s initiative.”
As a follow-up to the mentioned trilateral meeting, Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin sketches the historical roots of the conflict, which he traces back to the Soviet drawing of the administrative borders in the 1920s. Khanin positively assesses the key element of the agreement that the parties had reached, namely, “the U.S. intention to help build a major transit corridor, to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.” That resolves the issue of the so-called Zangezur corridor, a transportation route that would connect Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan. This corridor has been problematized during the entire conflict phase following the last outbreak of full-scale violence in 2023, with Azerbaijan and Turkey pushing for a corridor’s creation, Iran and Armenia objecting to it, and Russia being quite cautious in its public statements. Nowadays, within the framework proposed by President Trump’s administration, “the issue of the Zangezur corridor shifts from being a problem to becoming a key element of its solution.”
Alexander Shpunt provides his view on the reasons for the current depopulation trend in the Baltic countries. He contends that the common explanation that these countries are a “EU periphery” is rather superficial, and traces the reasons for the negative migration balance to the Soviet economic policies. The latter have destroyed the traditional local farming system based on individual farmsteads, violently collecting former individual peasants into the “collective farm villages” and settling them in multi-apartment houses. With the dismantling of the Soviet Union, these huge collective villages were dissolved, and the agricultural employment fell significantly, producing a “population free of local ties and traditions — ready to leave their homeland easily and without deep hesitation.” Simultaneously, the comparatively low pensions inhibited the elderly from emigrating, and potential migrants delayed having children until after resettling. The “relocation of young families from (…) the Baltics occurred so quickly that it outpaced business interest in the region’s cheap labor force.”
Alexander Shpunt provides an overview of the Buddhist religious landscape in Russia, highlighting the rivalry between the two largest Buddhist organizations, namely, the Traditional Buddhist Sangha of Russia (TBSR), headed by Damba Ayusheev, and the Central Spiritual Administration of Buddhists of Russia (CSAB), headed (since 2024) by the young and charismatic Geshe Yonten. This dual structure is typical also of Russian Judaism and Islam, being in line with Moscow’s “checks and balances” policy in religious affairs. TBSR has traditionally enjoyed more influence on the Kremlin and is generally seen as the main representative of the country’s Buddhists, being also the single Buddhist organization represented in the Presidential Interreligious Council. However, it is rather rigorous in ethnic (predominantly Buryat) and religious (the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism) terms. The latter fact has gradually made the CSAB, which is more open to Buddhists from all regions and religious traditions, more attractive for Moscow, which strives to influence broader Buddhist circles. Shpunt concludes that, likely, the “CSAB will continue to expand (…) influence, drawing an increasing number of Buddhist structures of various branches and traditions into their orbit,” while TBSR will strive to maintain the monopoly over the region of Buryatia and over the training of clergy.
Anatoliy Romanyuk and Vitaliy Lytvyn share a detailed account of religious and ethnolinguistic dynamics in Ukraine following the outbreak of the full-scale hostilities. Drawing on large-scale sociological data, they sketch the changes in geopolitical orientations and religious landscape in various regions of Ukraine, and note that the “contemporary shifts in the ethno-linguistic terrain of Ukraine are attributable to a confluence of internal dynamics, namely the escalating national or civic consciousness, and external factors.”
Also, traditionally, Alexander Shpunt has conducted his monthly monitoring of several significant analytical publications focused on the post-Soviet conflict dynamics.
We will continue producing relevant and up-to-date analysis of what is going on in the post-Soviet conflict zones in the coming months.