Russia’s declining influence in its own backyard offers President Donald Trump a major opportunity to burnish his peacemaking credentials. Peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been ongoing for years. Both countries might now be coming to a “successful conclusion,” President Trump said on July 15.
By facilitating a final settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the United States could deal a blow to Russia’s influence activities in the South Caucasus, a major corridor for Western energy and trade links.
Since 2020, Azerbaijan has launched two successful military operations to take disputed territories from neighboring Armenia. In September 2023, Baku’s “lightning offensive” recaptured the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
During both rounds of fighting, the Kremlin declined to intervene on Armenia’s behalf despite the presence of a reported 10,000 Russian soldiers in the country and its membership in Russia’s alternative to NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
With his country outmatched on the battlefield, Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan is determined to prevent further loss of territory. His concern is not unfounded. On May 21, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Congress, “There’s a real risk there of a conflict that we’re trying to prevent from happening.”
Secretary Rubio and President Trump may be able to do exactly that.
What has changed? Russia’s influence in the region is on the decline. Moscow can no longer carry out its preferred role as powerbroker and mediator between Yerevan and Baku.
The war in Ukraine has drawn the Kremlin’s attention away from the South Caucasus and weakened its ability to pressure governments along its wider borders. The Kremlin now appears keen to reverse this decline by targeting Azerbaijan’s diaspora community.
On June 27, Russia’s security service, the FSB, arrested about 50 ethnic Azerbaijanis (some of whom were Russian citizens) in Yekaterinburg and other cities. The FSB claimed the arrests were due to reopened murder cases from the early 2000s. While in custody, detainees were reportedly beaten and tortured with electric shocks. Two elderly Azerbaijani brothers caught up in the FSB raid, Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov, died in custody. According to Russian authorities, Ziyaddin died of a heart attack, but they gave no reason for Huseyn’s death.
Azerbaijan retaliated with arrests of Russian citizens, publicizing videos of prisoners with visible signs of mistreatment.
Standing up to Russia in this way is a new development for Azerbaijan and underscores the significance of the reciprocal crackdown in Baku. While Russia has focused on its invasion of Ukraine, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has been cultivating ties with regional powers like Turkey and Israel, while also making overtures to the United States and the European Union. The EU is a major customer of Azerbaijan’s energy exports.
Importantly, tensions with Moscow have been rising since December 25, when a Russian missile fired from Chechnya hit an Azerbaijani airliner, killing 38 passengers and crew. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s half-hearted apology for the “tragic incident in Russian airspace” fueled ill will in Azerbaijan.
Conditions are now ideal for a low-cost, high-reward expenditure of US diplomacy. At his most recent cabinet meeting with Trump, Secretary Rubio expressed optimism that Azerbaijan and Armenia could sign a deal, “[h]opefully, pretty soon.”
While he declined to elaborate on America’s role in peace talks, Baku and Yerevan face two main stumbling blocks: the return of Armenian detainees held by Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan’s demand for customs-free access to its exclave of Nakhchivan, which sits to Azerbaijan’s west between Armenia and Iran.
Washington has reportedly proposed that a private US company replace the Russian border guards who currently patrol the border between Armenia and the exclave. By assuming a more public-facing role as a mediator, the United States could resolve the remaining sticking points and demonstrate that both Azerbaijan and Armenia would benefit from closer alignment with the United States as Russia’s influence wanes.
Trump is keen to be a peacemaker. An additional push by Washington at this point could result in a historic peace between Baku and Yerevan. With Russia on the back foot, a deal could expand America’s influence in this energy-rich region of the world.
Peter Doran is an adjunct senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.
Dmitriy Shapiro is a research analyst at FDD.
