The South Caucasus between Russia and the West

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia lie between Russia, Turkey and Iran, on the only land route from the Caspian to Europe that avoids both Russia and Iran. For two centuries the region was Russia's. Since 2020 that has come apart in three different ways: Azerbaijan won its war with Turkish help and needs no patron; Armenia, which Russia did not defend, is applying to join the European Union; and Georgia, once the most pro-Western of the three, has a government that has frozen its European path and mended relations with Moscow.

Where it stands · September 2026

Vladimir Putin invited Armenia's prime minister to Moscow and said the two economic unions cannot be combined. Yerevan lodged a complaint in that union over Russian restrictions on Armenian products. In Georgia, MPs of the governing party voted for a bill repealing protest restrictions and later called the vote a technical error. Putin congratulated South Ossetia's president-elect. Armenia's prime minister and Turkey's president said the normalisation process should advance and that they are ready to give it new impetus.

What the dispute is about

Who guarantees whom. Russia's alliance did not act when Armenia was attacked. The West offers Armenia money, monitors and a distant prospect of membership, and no defence. Azerbaijan relies on Turkey and its own oil revenue. Georgia's government has concluded that the safest course is to give Moscow no cause.

The routes. Pipelines, railways and a planned road across southern Armenia, to be developed by an American consortium, would carry Central Asian and Caspian trade to Europe without crossing Russia or Iran. Both object.

Who decides inside. In Georgia and Armenia the choice between Russia and Europe is also the line between government and opposition, and each side accuses the other of serving a foreign master.

How each side explains it

Moscow's account

Russia kept the peace here for thirty years. The West is now doing in the Caucasus what it did in Ukraine: drawing a small country out of its natural economic and security ties with promises it will not keep, in order to place itself on Russia's southern border. Armenia's economy lives on the Russian market and Russian gas. The European Union will deceive it. In Georgia, a government that refused to open a second front against Russia was met with Western-funded street protests.

In our coverage

NATO encirclement/provocation is the aggressor; Russia responds defensively →96 headlines
Covered by:TASS (EN) · TASS · RT · Gazeta.ru · Lenta.ru · RIA Novosti

The account of Brussels and Washington

The peoples of the region are choosing for themselves. Armenians saw what Russia's guarantee was worth and voted in 2026 for a government that promises Europe. The American-brokered agreement of 2025 ended a war of thirty-five years that Russia had managed but never wanted solved. Georgia's rulers have taken the opposite road against the will of a population that is four fifths in favour of joining Europe, and are jailing those who say so.

In our coverage

What each account leaves out

Moscow's leaves out that its alliance refused Armenia's request for help when Azerbaijani forces struck Armenia itself in 2022; that its peacekeepers stood by through a nine-month blockade and the offensive that emptied Karabakh; and that its troops hold a fifth of Georgia.

Brussels's and Washington's leaves out that Europe doubled its gas purchases from Azerbaijan while Karabakh's Armenians were being driven out, and imposed no penalty; that it offers Armenia no security guarantee and a membership decades away; and that its leverage over Georgia's government has so far changed nothing.

The governments' leaves out, in Armenia's case, that Russian firms own its railways and gas network and a Russian base stays until 2044; in Azerbaijan's, that no Armenian has returned to Karabakh; in Georgia's, that the party itself wrote the goal of European membership into the constitution.

The ledger

Russia

Wanted: to remain the arbiter.
Gained: Georgia's accommodation.
Paid: distracted by Ukraine, it lost Armenia's trust and Azerbaijan's deference in three years.

The West

Wanted: a corridor and partners.
Gained: a peace framework with America's name on it, and Armenia's application.
Paid: Georgia, where it had invested most.

Azerbaijan

Wanted: its territory.
Gained: all of it, and a free hand.

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

near abroad / sovereign choice
liberation of occupied lands / ethnic cleansing, of Karabakh in 2023
peacekeepers / occupiers
foreign agents law / Russian law
corridor / route
multi-vector policy