It’s been three days since official Moscow has been urging Yerevan and Baku to halt hostilities on the Line of Contact that has actually become a battle frontline.

On the second day of the restarted local war it became evident that the Russian defense minister and the secretary of the security council would be traveling to Baku. We don’t know the objective of their visit.

It can’t be ruled out that they went to discuss the possibility of a new ceasefire and to organize a meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Prior to this, the Azerbaijani military has used TOC-1 multiple rocket launchers, obtained as a result of a US$5 billion arms deal with Russia for modern offensive weaponry.

Despite the fact that for the past two years, in response to Armenian concerns, Russia had given assurances that the weapons wouldn’t be used against Armenia or Artsakh Yerevan voiced its concern regarding the deal, today, Moscow has nothing to say on the issue.

Russia’s position, in the context of the last three days of fighting, is quite strange. In August 2014, when serious clashes broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces (after attempted reconnaissance forays by Azerbaijan), it only too Russian President Putin a few minutes to invited the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sochi for tri-lateral talks aimed at reducing tensions on the border.

Afterwards, the situation did calm down a bit. This time, however, when Azerbaijani President Aliyev officially declared they took the offensive, Putin seemed in no hurry to comment. Today, Putin’s press secretary Dimitry Peskov said that the Russian president had no telephone conversations with either Aliyev or Sargsyan.

If we can understand this in terms of Azerbaijan, it’s totally incomprehensible in the case of Armenia given the existence of an Armenian-Russian bilateral military-strategic treaty and the fact that the two countries are CSTO members. At the CSTO summit last December in Moscow, Serzh Sargsyan chided the leaders of the other member states for not calling him to find out what was going on in the region after instances of Azerbaijani military aggression.

Apparently, that complaint had no consequences. If Putin was satisfied with using his press secretary to express anxiety about the unfolding situation in Nagorno Karabakh, Belarus President Lukashenko, another CSTO member) not only had a phone conversation with Aliyev but declared that he backed the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Pro-Kremlin political pundits explain this Russian parity regarding the situation by arguing that Nagorno Karabakh does not fall within the parameters of the CSTO defense pact and that the Russian-Armenian defense pact relates to Armenia, and no Karabakh.

Such an approach however is chauvinistic as well as pro-Azerbaijani because, as a result, Moscow actually regards Nagorno Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory and justifies the policy of Baku to restore its territorial integrity by any means, while regarding Armenia as the aggressor.

In such a case, official Yerevan should have reminded Russia that if Nagorno Karabakh doesn’t fall within its security zone and that of CSTO, it should direct its call for a halt in hostilities not to Yerevan and Baku, but to Stepanakert and Baku. If the recipient of the call is Armenia, it should have recognized its obligation towards Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh given that, first of all, military partnership signifies not only to understand and respect the interests of your partner country but to also defend its interests.

In the end, when signing a bilateral military cooperation agreement with Armenia and the agreement to create CSTO, Russia must have taken into account the vital significance of the Nagorno Karabakh issue for Yerevan and its interests there. Moscow must have known that Yerevan took the risks associated with the conflict into account when signing such a long-term and, in certain respects, a demeaning treaty.

In other words, the alternative is quite clear. In this situation Russia is either on the side of Armenia or is working against it. This isn’t an overstatement given the threats to Armenia emanating from Turkey.

During these last three days of fighting, Turkey, as a OSCE member, has unequivocally defended the offensive moves of Azerbaijan. On April 2, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally called Aliyev and congratulated him for successful military advances on the Line of Contact. The next day, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu made a statement, quite disturbing for Armenia and especially Russia, that the Ottoman Turk must be on the side of its Azerbaijani brothers. This was nothing less than a confession, in the context of Turkish imperialist politics, that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was seen as a part of that process.

Moscow’s response was quite bewildering. Today, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov declared that Russia saw no third party behind the scenes, including Turkey, fomenting the restart of military operations in Nagorno Karabakh. Russia didn’t even try, for propaganda points, to raise the issue of Turkey’s evident assistance, both political and military, to Azerbaijan. This cannot but have certain consequences.

The issue isn’t only that, as a result, Russia is letting Armenia stand alone in the face of opened Turkish-Azerbaijani jaws. The problem is that Russia is essential politically placating Turkey, and using the situation in Karabakh as an opportunity to restore mutual relations between the two. The logic is quite simple. By concealing the ears of Ankara in this latest round of Azerbaijani aggression, Moscow wants it to be known that to stabilize the situation Turkey can use Azerbaijan and Russia can use its influence over Armenia, and that this can serve as a reason to restore diplomatic and political contacts between the two nations.

The question is why Russia need to shake the hand of Turkey in the Caucasus front. The fact is that Russia has no interest in seeing a new battlefield opening up in the south Caucasus and from which, at some point, it would have to withdraw. After Syria and the Ukraine, this could turn into a third quagmire for Russia.  

After being slapped by the U.S., Turkey, along with Russia, has a chance to establish mediated contacts in the Nagorno Karabakh issue. Azerbaijan is testing the military prowess of the Armenian forces and is testing its potential to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict via military means.

It’s not in the best interests of Russia to have a new widened Armenian-Azerbaijani war, since it doesn’t want to lose Azerbaijan as one of the largest purchasers of its military armaments and as a commercial link to Iran. For the sake of all this, Russia can even sacrifice the interests of Armenia.

Nevertheless, Russia is now providing a very important service to Armenia, the NKR, and the Armenian people.

It is teaching all three not to trust anyone, not even strategic partners like Russia.

It is teaching Armenians to have faith in themselves only.

Russia is teaching us to be realists.