The Fall of Nagorno-Karabakh: Geopolitical Fallout in the South Caucasus

On September 18, 2023, analysis of the frozen conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh—an ethnically-Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized borders—highlighted concerns that another war might be imminent. Even as the ongoing peace process was discussed, there were fears that conflict might soon return to the South Caucasus. Sadly, these concerns were more accurate than realized.

Less than 24 hours later, Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karabakh. In a lightning military assault, Azerbaijani forces destroyed the region’s defenses. Facing total annihilation, the Karabakhis surrendered, ending the era of Nagorno-Karabakh as a de facto recognized state.

The critical question now is what happens next. With a history of bad blood between Yerevan and Baku, there are real fears that the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh might lead to ethnic cleansing, and that another flashpoint between the two states may already be on the horizon, potentially resulting in all-out regional war.

The Lightning War and Surrender of Artsakh

When the end came, it was swift and brutal. After some three decades as a de facto unrecognized state, Nagorno-Karabakh—known to Armenians as the Republic of Artsakh—fell less than 24 hours after the Azerbaijani shelling started. On the morning of September 19, 2023, everything had been quiet, if tense.

Just hours before, Azerbaijan had partially lifted a five-month-old blockade of the region, letting in the first aid trucks in nearly half a year. In Western capitals, nervous experts quietly exhaled, sure this was a sign crisis had been averted. But what they had mistaken for a new beginning was really just a false dawn.

It was an illusion, masking yet more darkness. Later that same day, around noon, the quiet was broken by the sudden thud of artillery, by the buzz of drones, and by flashes of flame. In a high-speed assault, Azerbaijani forces swept into Nagorno-Karabakh.

Although up to a hundred of Baku’s troops would be killed, their sheer force made them unstoppable. Within hours, Armenian villages had been surrounded. Two hundred Karabakhi soldiers were dead, along with perhaps tens of civilians.

Although the self-declared government of Nagorno-Karabakh issued pleas for help, no one answered. Despite large protests in Yerevan, Armenia refused to intervene. Meanwhile, the roughly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers—a remnant of the shaky 2020 ceasefire—simply stood aside.

By midday on September 20, 2023, the war was over. Facing total annihilation, the enclave surrendered. A Russian-brokered peace forced them to lay down their weapons and accept disarmament.

In return, the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, offered Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians nothing beyond absorption into Azerbaijan. They would retain undefined language rights, but there would be no constitutional recognition, autonomy, or special treatment. The days of the Republic of Artsakh were over.

With them, had ended one of the last great frozen conflicts left over from the fall of the Soviet empire.

Decades of Frozen Conflict and the Shifting Balance of Power

In the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, that conflict had started back in 1988, when both Armenia and Azerbaijan were still part of the creaking USSR. The extremely simplified version of the region’s history is that Nagorno-Karabakh spent the Soviet period as an ethnically Armenian autonomous oblast within the borders of Socialist Azerbaijan. In the dying days of the USSR, the Karabakhis tried to break away and join Armenia, but Azerbaijan refused to let them go.

What followed were a series of pogroms, massacres, and ethnic cleansing carried out by both sides. However, it would be Yerevan that, in 1994, emerged victorious from the war. At the cost of some 30,000 lives, Armenia had ensured Nagorno-Karabakh would remain forever outside of Baku’s control.

Or so it seemed. In 2020, after a quarter-century of fragile peace, the situation abruptly reversed. Now rich off oil money and backed by rising regional power Turkey, Azerbaijan launched a surprise offensive that devastated Armenia’s forces.

Over 44 days of fighting, Baku reclaimed 75 percent of all territory it lost in the 1990s. Two years later, in 2022, an additional two days of conflict saw the Azerbaijanis take strategically significant heights overlooking the now-wounded enclave. It is important to note at this point that Nagorno-Karabakh was not considered part of Armenia.

Even Yerevan’s allies called it an unrecognized state within Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized borders. What sounds like a technical point had real-world consequences when Baku decided to blockade the enclave. Since the blockade was technically taking place on Azerbaijani soil, none of Armenia’s allies—not Russia, not Iran, not the collective West—felt able to intervene.

The result was that by September of this year, Nagorno-Karabakh’s citizens had run out of food and medicine. Electricity and water were barely functioning, and famine was on the horizon. Although the US, the EU, and Russia all separately tried to sponsor diplomatic solutions, they would get nowhere.

On September 19, 2023, Baku announced an “anti-terror operation,” allegedly in response to landmines killing Azerbaijani soldiers. In reality, it appears President Ilham Aliyev sensed this was his chance to strike when his enemies were starving and weak. It was a cold calculation that would bring the autocrat a swift victory, but it was also one that would have ramifications for the wider world.

Geopolitical Fallout for the West and Russia

The most important aspect of this story is the fate of the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and what will happen to them once Azerbaijan fully takes control of their home. However, it is also critical to examine how the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh will be felt across the globe. Powerful international players are deeply invested in this small slice of mountainous territory, and Baku’s victory is likely to have an outsize impact on their strategic fortunes.

In the case of the collective West, that impact is decidedly negative. To be blunt, the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh represents a humiliating failure for EU and US-led diplomacy. Immediately prior to the September 19 assault, European diplomats were briefing that their peace process with Armenia and Azerbaijan was working.

Baku had promised not to use force against Nagorno-Karabakh, and Western officials had believed them. The Azerbaijani attack dismantled any notions that Baku remains overly concerned with European or American opinions. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was reduced to complaining in the United Nations that Baku had again assured it would refrain from using force, but that promise was broken.

Partly, this failure is because international norms are breaking down everywhere, but it is also because President Ilham Aliyev knows he has massive leverage in the form of natural gas. After Moscow turned off the taps to Europe last year as punishment for supporting Ukraine, Europeans were left scrabbling to find alternatives. While officials managed to make sure their citizens did not freeze, they only did so by acquiring gas from new sources with no questions asked.

One of those sources happened to be Azerbaijan, and Aliyev clearly believes Brussels is too dependent on him to punish his assault on Nagorno-Karabakh. Embarrassing as this debacle has been for the West, it has also been a nightmare for Russia. In Russian media, this might seem a strange claim.

Vladimir Putin’s various propaganda arms have spent the ensuing time crowing about how the crisis is all Armenia’s fault for getting too cozy with the US. But make no mistake, while it may not be as immediately humiliating as the West’s failure, Azerbaijan’s defeat of Nagorno-Karabakh is a clear sign of Moscow’s waning power. Armenia is meant to be one of Russia’s closest allies; a member of the CSTO—Moscow’s equivalent of NATO—and the Eurasian Economic Union.

As recently as 2020, that alliance saw Vladimir Putin publicly state that the Armenian Karabakhis were under his protection, ensuring that refugees from the 2020 war could return to the enclave and be sure Russian peacekeepers would keep them safe. Three years later, those same peacekeepers simply stood aside as Azerbaijani forces swept in. They stood aside even as Baku’s troops killed serving Russian soldiers.

During the assault, at least six Russian peacekeepers are reported to have died, including Colonel Ivan Kovgan, the deputy commander of Russia’s North Fleet submarine forces, who was killed when Azerbaijan’s troops opened fire on his car. Although Baku later apologized, members of the Russian Duma have accused Azerbaijan of deliberately targeting Russian peacekeepers. Against such a dark background, the Kremlin’s new cozy relationship with Azerbaijan seems less like Putin playing high-level strategy and more like a distracted autocrat trying to keep on the good side of whoever is winning.

As one defense analyst noted, Moscow’s post-Soviet strategy has often been to stoke conflicts to weaken its near neighbors, creating crises in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, but on this occasion, the Kremlin has had to adapt to Azerbaijan’s rising power.

Political Betrayal in Yerevan and the Zangezur Corridor Threat

Yet it is not just the West and Russia that have been burned by Baku’s victory. The nation that will likely suffer the greatest instability of all is Armenia. If one word were to describe the mood in Armenian society, it might be “betrayed.”

The population feels betrayed not just by Moscow’s failure to protect the Karabakhis, nor by the wider world’s inaction in the face of Baku’s assault, but by their own leaders. In the 1990s Nagorno-Karabakh war and the conflict in 2020, Armenia was an active participant. Even during the two-day conflict of 2022, Armenian soldiers fought and died to try and protect the exclave.

In 2023, however, the government simply stood back and let events unfold. On September 19, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Yerevan would not join the fighting and that it was up to the Russian peacekeepers to protect Karabakhi Armenians. Naturally, this stance proved deeply unpopular.

Yerevan was filled with protestors calling for Pashinyan’s resignation, gathering in such large numbers that riot police had to disperse them with stun grenades. Ever since, smaller protests have continued to block traffic and disrupt daily life. As public anger grows, Pashinyan has responded by claiming that high-level circles in Nagorno-Karabakh are planning riots to topple his government.

While a governmental collapse currently looks unlikely—although not impossible—there is no doubt that ordinary Armenians are intensely frustrated, suggesting the country could be entering a period of increased instability. More than just a slice of territory, Nagorno-Karabakh has important emotional resonance for many Armenians. Losing the 2020 war with Baku was a bruising experience; letting the territory fall without even putting up a fight is devastating.

Speaking to the media, independent researcher Meliqset Panosian predicted that the emotional shock of Azerbaijan’s victory might push the public in a more nationalistic, militaristic direction, a push that could destabilize the region for a long time to come. This will be doubly true if another major player in the conflict gets its way: Turkey. As Azerbaijan’s main backer, Ankara is the war’s biggest winner outside Baku.

But Turkey’s greater geopolitical goals do not stop with the Azerbaijanis occupying Nagorno-Karabakh. Rather, they involve Azerbaijan’s own exclave: Nakhchivan. Just as Nagorno-Karabakh was separated from Armenia by internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory, so too is Nakhchivan separated from the Azerbaijani mainland by parts of Armenia.

Looking at the geography of Armenia, with its wide northern region tapering to a narrow southern trunk, that southern trunk is the part separating Azerbaijan from Nakhchivan—a 40-kilometer swath of Armenia that borders Iran. Ankara and Baku both want to bridge that gap. Their goal is to build a road and rail line across it, thereby joining Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan into a single entity.

Known as the Zangezur corridor, this proposed land bridge would revive the arrangement that existed in Soviet times, joining Baku with the 460,000 Azerbaijanis outside its main territory. More importantly for Ankara, it would properly connect Turkey to its ally. Right now, the only part of Azerbaijan that Turkey borders is Nakhchivan.

That means any goods Ankara wants to ship to Central Asia have to go through regional rival Iran. Completing the Zangezur corridor would give Turkey a road and rail connection not just to the rest of Azerbaijan, but to the rest of the Turkic world. The trouble is, such a corridor would be anathema to Armenia.

Not only would it undermine Yerevan’s territorial integrity, but it would also effectively close the border with one of Armenia’s only regional allies: Iran. Armenia’s foreign minister recently told the UN that forcefully imposing an extraterritorial corridor passing through Armenian territory but remaining out of their control is unacceptable. Yet, writing on the situation, journalist and Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal noted that forcing the Zangezur corridor on Armenia while it is weak is exactly what Ankara and Baku are likely to do.

This was seemingly confirmed by reports on September 25 that Aliyev and Erdogan met to discuss the corridor, a pet project of Aliyev’s for some years. Back in 2021, the Azerbaijani autocrat threatened to create the corridor whether Armenia likes it or not. Unsurprisingly, Armenian channels are currently alive with speculation that another invasion is on its way, fearing that the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh was just step one of a broader plan that will see Azerbaijani and Turkish forces try to carve a trail through Armenia’s south.

Humanitarian Crisis and the Threat of Ethnic Cleansing

Amid the shifting borders and geopolitical maneuvers, the immediate fate of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians could become the world’s next great humanitarian crisis. Listening to President Aliyev talk about his plans for Nagorno-Karabakh, observers might be forgiven for wondering what the concern is about. Aliyev has promised to turn the region into a “paradise,” stating his government will give the Karabakhi Armenians rights and security.

His foreign minister agreed, stating that ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan will enjoy all rights and freedoms. Indeed, there are even some tentative signs that Baku wants to demonstrate goodwill towards its new citizens. On September 26, regional expert Laurence Broers noted that one of the key things Azerbaijani diplomats discussed with the self-declared government was the setting up of field hospitals to care for the war’s wounded.

But while the rhetoric might be encouraging, the reality on the ground is starkly different. Rather than a tale of integration and paradise, the narrative emerging from the region is one of panicked flight, mass exodus, and deep-seated fears of ethnic cleansing. On Sunday night into Monday morning following the surrender, Azerbaijan finally lifted its blockade, allowing the free movement of Karabakhi Armenians out of the enclave and into Armenia itself.

By 5 a.m. local time, nearly 3,000 refugees had fled across the border. By midday Monday, that number had more than doubled, and by mid-afternoon Tuesday, it had grown to over 19,000 people, with more streaming across every minute. The Armenian town of Goris quickly became overwhelmed, and the refugee figures have undoubtedly continued to climb.

Speaking to the press, David Babayan, an adviser to Nagorno-Karabakh’s president, declared that rather than come under Azerbaijani rule, 99.9 percent of the population prefers to leave their historic lands. Exactly how many refugees this mass exodus will ultimately equate to remains unknown. Officially, the number of ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh is 120,000.

Unofficially, many analysts admit the number is lower; at its most extreme, it could be as low as 50,000. Still, 50,000 refugees is a massive demographic shock for a country like Armenia, which has a population of just 2.7 million. The government initially reported that it had the capacity to take in only 40,000 people.

If the official figure of 120,000 Karabakhi Armenians turns out to be correct, then Armenian society is on the verge of being completely overwhelmed by the logistical and humanitarian strain. To understand why so many are fleeing, it is only necessary to look at the region’s recent past. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War from 1988 to 1994, ethnic cleansing became commonplace.

Armenians fled Azerbaijani pogroms, and Azerbaijanis fled Armenian massacres. By the war’s end, Armenia had seized control of seven Azerbaijani-majority districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, sending hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis into exile. Ever since, Baku’s forces have maintained a bitter resolve to return the favor.

As Laurence Broers observed, there is a history that when soldiers have come across Armenian civilians who stayed in place and did not flee, they have been murdered. This pattern was visible in 2016 and again in 2020, fostering a climate of profound impunity. To this grim historical record, one can add the US State Department report following the two-day 2022 war, which recounted not only extrajudicial killings, torture, and other ill-treatment, but also the desecration of Armenian graves by Azerbaijan’s soldiers.

Given all this, it is highly rational that Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents are running to the safety of Armenia. After all, President Aliyev, despite his recent diplomatic overtures, previously referred to Karabakhi leaders as “bloodsucking leeches”—exactly the type of dehumanizing language utilized during the ethnic cleansing campaigns of the Balkan Wars.

Future Flashpoints and the Risk of Regional War

All of this leads to a question that is as simple as it is loaded with danger: what happens next? Caucasus specialist Thomas de Waal, one of the most prolific and knowledgeable writers on the region, warned of a real and credible threat of ethnic cleansing. The demographic group that experts seem to be most worried about is Nagorno-Karabakh’s male population.

As a small, self-declared state with an extremely hostile neighbor, Nagorno-Karabakh operates its army on a conscription system. Most of its young men are under arms, while most of its older men are former soldiers who have, in the past, fought against Azerbaijan. De Waal highlighted the potential for Baku to allow women and children safe passage but to detain or outright kill men it considers enemy soldiers.

To be fair, Azerbaijan has offered an amnesty for fighters who lay down their weapons. However, Azerbaijani officials have specifically stated it will not be backdated, and it is known that Baku’s leadership maintains lists of Karabakhi Armenians it believes were responsible for war crimes in previous conflicts. That means the majority of the older male population could be targeted, especially since Russia’s peacekeepers seem disinclined to intervene.

Thankfully, there have been no definitive signs yet of a systematic campaign of death, and analysts conclude that Azerbaijan cares too much about its international image to conduct mass murder in plain sight. The fact remains, however, that this is an incredibly tense situation—one in which the best outcome is an orderly exodus, and the worst is bloodletting on an epic scale. If the lens is zoomed out further, it becomes clear there is a severe risk for the geopolitical situation to spiral out of control.

The primary point of worry is the aforementioned Zangezur Corridor, which would cut through Armenia’s extreme south and seal off its border with Iran. Already, there are signs that Ankara is pushing Baku for this to be the next step, a demand that Yerevan is bound to refuse. That leaves Azerbaijan the option of creating the corridor through sheer military force.

While Nikol Pashinyan’s government could survive sitting out an assault on Nagorno-Karabakh, there is no way Yerevan could do anything but fight back if Azerbaijani forces tried to seize sovereign parts of Armenia. There is no definitive evidence that another invasion is imminent, but if Ankara and Baku lean too hard on the Zangezur Corridor, it could become a massive future flashpoint, one that would make the recent collapse of Artsakh look trifling in comparison. Iran is highly unlikely to accept an Azerbaijani land bridge that would cut it off from its ally Armenia.

Given that relations between Baku and Tehran are already at a historic low point, there are understandable concerns that an attempt to force the corridor could lead to a wider regional war—one in which the combatants are not just Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also Turkey and Iran. Another critical point of instability is the growing rift between Armenia and Russia. On September 24, Pashinyan publicly criticized Moscow for abandoning the Karabakhi Armenians and suggested that Armenia would need to find new ways to protect itself outside its alliance with Russia.

Russia responded with a press release full of anti-Armenian rhetoric and veiled threats. Laurence Broers described it as an extraordinary statement itemizing grievances against Pashinyan in ways that many took to threaten Armenia’s actual sovereignty. A full break with Russia would leave Yerevan in an extremely precarious position.

Currently, the Armenian city of Gyumri hosts a vast Russian military base, one that acts both as a security guarantee and as a warning for Yerevan not to stray too far from Moscow. Furthermore, Armenia does not have alternative allies it can easily turn to. Despite Pashinyan’s recent Western pivot, there is little to no chance of Yerevan ever joining the EU or NATO in the near future.

Nor is it easy to imagine the United States coming to the military aid of a country geographically and economically intertwined with one of America’s staunch enemies, Iran. In short, Armenia is today a deeply vulnerable state, bordered by two adversaries that want more of its territory, and operating under the supposed protection of an unreliable partner that actively favors its enemies. In such circumstances, it is easy to see how simmering tensions could erupt into broader regional violence.

With the future of the South Caucasus region still in extreme flux, the fate of Armenia and the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh remains uncertain amid geopolitical games involving regional superpowers. What is undeniably certain, though, is that after 35 long years, the status of Nagorno-Karabakh has finally been settled by force of arms. A holdover, unrecognized state from the Soviet Union’s collapse has at last been erased, closing a bloody chapter in South Caucasus history for good.

What comes next remains shrouded in diplomatic mystery and military tension, but there is no doubt that the international community must pay very close attention to what unfolds amid this stark mountain landscape in the coming weeks. The shifting borders and alliances in the Caucasus carry profound strategic consequences for the entire world—consequences that will soon become violently clear if diplomacy fails to hold the line.

Frequently Asked Questions

How quickly did Azerbaijani forces take Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023?

Azerbaijan’s assault began on September 19, 2023, and was over in less than 24 hours. Despite up to a hundred Azerbaijani troops being killed, the sheer force of the attack was unstoppable — Armenian villages were surrounded within hours, around 200 Karabakhi soldiers were killed, and the self-declared government of Nagorno-Karabakh surrendered by midday on September 20 under a Russian-brokered peace that required disarmament. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev offered Karabakh’s Armenians nothing beyond absorption into Azerbaijan with undefined language rights and no autonomy.

Why did Russia’s peacekeepers fail to protect Nagorno-Karabakh?

Russia’s roughly 2,000 peacekeepers, stationed in the enclave under the shaky 2020 ceasefire, simply stood aside during the Azerbaijani assault even as Baku’s troops killed serving Russian soldiers — at least six peacekeepers died, including a deputy commander of Russia’s North Fleet submarine forces. Analysts read this as evidence of Moscow’s waning influence in the region: Armenia is supposed to be one of Russia’s closest allies and a member of the CSTO, yet Putin’s public guarantee that refugees from 2020 could return safely under Russian protection proved worthless.

Why did so many ethnic Armenians flee Nagorno-Karabakh rather than remain under Azerbaijani rule?

The mass exodus was driven by a documented history of ethnic cleansing during previous conflicts. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, both sides carried out pogroms and massacres, and reports from the two-day 2022 conflict included extrajudicial killings, torture, and the desecration of Armenian graves by Azerbaijani soldiers. President Aliyev had previously referred to Karabakhi leaders as “bloodsuckers” — the kind of dehumanizing language associated with ethnic cleansing campaigns. By mid-afternoon Tuesday following the surrender, over 19,000 people had already fled across the border.

What is the Zangezur corridor and why is it considered a potential flashpoint?

The Zangezur corridor is a proposed road and rail link that would cross through the narrow southern strip of Armenia to connect Azerbaijan’s mainland with its exclave Nakhchivan, thereby giving both Azerbaijan and its backer Turkey a land connection to the broader Turkic world. Armenia views any extraterritorial corridor passing through its territory but outside its control as unacceptable, and it would also effectively close Armenia’s border with Iran, one of its few remaining regional allies. Reports from September 25, 2023, confirmed that Aliyev and Erdogan met to discuss the corridor, which Aliyev had previously threatened to create by force if necessary.

How has the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh damaged Armenia’s relationship with Russia?

Prime Minister Pashinyan publicly criticized Moscow after the fall, suggesting Armenia would need to find new ways to protect itself outside its alliance with Russia. Russia responded with a press release full of anti-Armenian rhetoric and veiled threats that Caucasus specialist Laurence Broers described as appearing to threaten Armenia’s actual sovereignty. The relationship had already been strained by Russia’s failure to honor its 2020 security guarantees; a full break would leave Armenia extremely vulnerable, as the city of Gyumri hosts a vast Russian military base that serves both as a security guarantee and as leverage over Yerevan’s foreign policy choices.

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