Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was aggressively confronted by a pro-Ukrainian activist masquerading as a journalist who provocatively insinuated during his latest trip to Armenia that Azerbaijan’s use of Russian arms suggests Moscow’s support of Baku over Yerevan. In his response, which is too lengthy to republish in full but can be read here, Lavrov made three important points about Russia’s military diplomacy that are worth raising awareness about since most media ignored them.
Before proceeding, it’s important to define what’s meant by military diplomacy. This refers to the use of arms sales to advance political goals, which in Russia’s case results in such sales to rival countries in the hopes of maintaining the balance of power between them. It’s meant to encourage them to rely on political means for settling their disputes instead of military ones. By contrast, the US’ military diplomacy aims to give its partners advantages over their adversaries so that they rely on military means instead.
Accordingly, Russia sells arms to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, while the US began pivoting away from Azerbaijan towards Armenia under Biden and might continue this trajectory under Trump. These facts add context to the three important points that Lavrov made about Russia’s military diplomacy, the first being that “Many countries have our weapons, but that doesn’t mean they are always used in ways that align with the principles that suit everybody.”
As a case in point, he reminded his pro-Ukrainian provocateur that “Armenia, too, has used Russian-made weapons throughout the years following its independence, specifically, to seize seven Azerbaijani districts to which it had never officially laid claim.” The second important point that Lavrov made was that “Buying weapons from other countries is not a problem. That is up to our Armenian friends”, but he implied ulterior motives on Armenia’s part for buying arms from France, which is hostile to Russia.
France practices the same form of military diplomacy as the US does in that it aims to give its partners advantages over their adversaries so that they rely on military means instead of political ones for settling their disputes. As regards Armenia’s purchase of French arms, this suggests that the Armenian leadership might still harbor revanchist goals that could provoke another conflict, which lends credence to Azerbaijan’s concerns.
The preceding two points then directly led into the third one about how Russia tried to politically resolve this conflict in the past after arming both sides per its explained policy of military diplomacy. Lavrov refreshed everyone’s memory about how Russia proposed Armenia’s withdrawal from five of the occupied Azerbaijani regions while the remaining two would “be left to future generations to address.” In his assessment, “It [was] probably a better solution than what we have now”, yet Armenia rejected it.
Altogether, Lavrov made the following three important points about Russia’s military diplomacy: 1) Russia ultimately isn’t responsible for how its arms are used by its partners; 2) these same partners are free to purchase arms from whoever else they’d like (though doing so from anti-Russian countries raises eyebrows); and 3) Armenia rejected Russia’s proposed compromise with Azerbaijan on Karabakh, which was predicated upon the mediation role that Moscow obtained through its military diplomacy with both.
It’s in Russia’s interests to amplify these aforementioned points in order to counter weaponized misportrayals thereof that are meant to discredit Russian policy by presenting it as an unreliable partner. This false perception is then exploited to help the American military-industrial complex make inroads at its Russian competitor’s expense, which in this case takes the form of falsely legitimizing and consequently accelerating Armenia’s pivot towards the US that threatens to destabilize the region.
