A convoy of Russian military trucks entered Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday as Russia continued to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from the depopulated region recaptured by Azerbaijan last September.
The 2,000-strong peacekeeping contingent was deployed to Karabakh in line with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The Russian troops were due to stay there at least until November 2025. Their failure to prevent or stop the Azerbaijani military offensive, which forced Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population to flee to Armenia, called into question their continued presence there.
Moscow began withdrawing the peacekeepers from Karabakh last week following an agreement reportedly reached by the Russian and Azerbaijani presidents. Images circulated by Azerbaijani media in the following days showed some of them returning to Russia through Azerbaijan.
The Russian convoy seen by an RFE/RL reporter entered Armenia through the Lachin corridor. An Armenian military police car escorted it to the nearby town of Goris.
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Armen Grigoryan, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, clarified later in the day that the Russian peacekeepers will only briefly stay in Armenia.
“A group of military personnel of the contingent and their column went to their temporary deployment locations in Goris and Sisian in order to organize their closure,” Grigoryan told the Armenpress news agency.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed the Russian troop withdrawal on the Armenian government’s controversial decision to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
“This [withdrawal] corresponds to the current realities that have developed in the region after Armenia recognized the borders of Azerbaijan as of 1991,” he told Russian state television. “The geopolitical realities there have changed, and there are no functions left for [the peacekeepers] anymore.”
Moscow has similarly blamed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian for its failure to thwart or even condemn the Azerbaijani takeover of Karabakh. Yerevan has dismissed such claims, insisting that the peacekeepers have failed to fulfill their mandate.
Peskov spoke as Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in the Kremlin.
“Regional security issues are constantly on the agenda of our meetings, and we are also pleased with how they are being solved,” Aliyev told Putin at the start of the talks. “Russia is a fundamental country in terms of regional security in the Caucasus and wider geography.”
