Yerevan /Mediamax. Director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council of Foreign Relations Nicu Popescu believes that "Nagorno-Karabakh will now look more like Georgia’s secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia before 2008.”

Popescu, who served as Moldova’s Foreign Minister in June-November 2019, writes so in the article “Russia’s win in Nagorno-Karabakh is EU’s loss” in Politico.

“Georgia’s two separatist regions have long been geopolitically convenient conflict zones that allowed Russia to raise or lower the security temperature to influence domestic politics and the security situation in Georgia,” he writes.

“But if Azerbaijan might seem the victor and Armenia the loser, the situation is more complicated for both. For Baku, this is more of a Faustian bargain than a victory. Azerbaijan acquired seven territories around Nagorno-Karabakh, previously occupied by Armenia, and will get to keep the territorial gains it made in the enclave, but will have to accept constraints on its future foreign policy and security.

With Russian military presence on what is internationally recognized as Azerbaijan’s territory, and Russian security personnel ensuring Azerbaijani access to its exclave in Nakhchivan, Moscow suddenly acquires much more security leverage in the country.  

Armenia, meanwhile, retains de facto control of part of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers on the ground makes the country less vulnerable to future conflagrations.

As a result, however, Armenia finds itself in the much more difficult situation of having dramatically increased its already high dependence on Moscow, with what remains of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh now indefensible without Russia. Yerevan now faces the possibility that Russia will push it even harder into making painful concessions in domestic or foreign policy,” writes Popescu.