Yerevan /Mediamax/. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, former Deputy Secretary General of NATO Alexander Vershbow believes that Russia "basically abandoned Armenia” in the recent Artsakh war.

Vershbow has made this remark to American journalist Jill Dougherty, who has conducted a series of interviews with former U.S. ambassadors to Russia.

According to Alexander Vershbow, Putin’s “efforts to dominate his neighbors aren’t going quite as well these days as they may have seemed to be going.”

“Ukraine is still in a kind of stalemate in terms of the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine, but Ukraine continues to, more and more, orient itself towards the West, and I think psychologically, Russia has lost Ukraine; it’s lost the Ukrainian people by its brutal treatment and propaganda and disinformation on top of that. Belarus is now an unexpected headache. Russia doesn’t want to legitimize another people’s revolution, but it doesn’t know quite how to steer events in a way that would keep Belarus under control or at least manageable.

And now in the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict, Turkey has staked out a strong strategic position. And while Russia got what it wanted in the short term with troops on the ground to separate the parties, it’s perceived as having basically abandoned Armenia and let the Turks establish a strategic foothold in the former Soviet space, which is going to encourage other of Russia’s neighbors to begin to look elsewhere for support than to Moscow,” said former Deputy Secretary General of NATO.