View from Moscow: Forecasting Russia`s future policy in the South  Caucasus is a thankless task

ArmInfo.It is known that forecasting is a thankless task, but forecasting the future policy of Russia in the South Caucasus is doubly thankless, first of all,  taking into account the inconsistency of Russian expert political  thought and existing concepts in the Caucasian direction of our  policy. Russian military expert Vladimir Evseev expressed a similar  opinion to ArmInfo.

"The increased intensity of geopolitical confrontation at the  international level has naturally led to a shortage of geopolitical  containment mechanisms, increasing the level of uncertainty. Against  such a background, military and other provocations in the South  Caucasus, which is full of unresolved problems, cannot be ruled out,  especially against the backdrop of Baku's attempts to hit the jackpot  by engaging in its favor of any international instability. It's no  secret that Azerbaijan sees the situation around Ukraine as an  additional opportunity to speed up negotiations and put pressure on  Armenia," he said.

Thus, the expert by no means excludes short-term escalations of the  situation in the conflict region of a local nature. According to his  forecasts, a long-term, large-scale escalation is ruled out due to  the expected active diplomatic intervention of Russia in this case,  first of all, due to the unwillingness to get another hotbed of  hostilities on its own borders.

According to Evseev, the West is acting in a coordinated manner  against Russia today, which is periodically joined by Turkey,  Azerbaijan, and some other countries. And according to his estimates,  it is precisely the absence of an unambiguous, clear policy of  Armenia towards Russia that significantly reduces Moscow's desire and  ability to respond to certain situations and scenarios around  Armenia.

"However, at the same time, on the basis of existing experience, I  can say that the calculations of Russian diplomacy are not always  correct and far calculated. This also adds uncertainty to the process  of forecasting further impulses in the South Caucasus. It can be  stated that Ukraine, in turn, contributed to Russia's rather calm,  balanced policy at this stage, the purpose of which is to avoid  specific conflicts and problems with both Armenia and Azerbaijan,"  the military expert summed up.