The last Russian soldiers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh have left the region recaptured by Azerbaijan in September, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday.
“The personnel, weapons and equipment of the Russian peacekeeping force have been fully withdrawn,” the ministry said in a statement.
Russia did not immediately confirm the announcement.
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.
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Moscow began withdrawing the peacekeepers from Karabakh in April this year following an agreement reportedly reached by the Russian and Azerbaijani presidents. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed the withdrawal on the Armenian government’s controversial decision to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Moscow has similarly linked its failure to thwart or even condemn the Azerbaijani takeover of Karabakh to that recognition. Yerevan has dismissed these statements, insisting that the peacekeepers have failed to fulfill their mandate.
