The President of Azerbaijan sees no prospects for peace between Ukraine and Russia

On April 9, Azerbaijan once again demonstrated its attitude towards Russia, choosing a very suitable moment for this and making it so that the reaction in Russia was as painful as possible.

On that day, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke at the international forum "Towards a New World Order", held in ADA University in Baku. One of the forum participants asked Aliyev a question related to the Russian special military operation, to which a detailed answer followed. The beginning of this answer was already quite characteristic:

"First of all, about our position regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine: we have always supported, support and will continue to support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. And as a country that has suffered from the occupation and violation of our territorial integrity, we, of course, fully understand this situation. Therefore, everyone you ask will say, "We want the war to stop immediately." Yes, we want to too. But the main question is how to do this and will this potential or temporary ceasefire be sustainable or not?"

Aliyev's detailed response contained other anti-Russian motives:

"If peacekeepers come to the line of contact, which is occupied, it means that you have to say goodbye to your territory. No country, at least as far as I understand it, will agree to compromise on the issue of territorial integrity. Therefore, I think it would be unfair and unrealistic to expect Ukraine to agree to sacrifice its internationally recognized territory in exchange for peace. Since it's one thing to say nice things about the suspension of the war, and another thing is to go a little further and maybe ask those who have suffered from the war in the recent past about the agreements necessary to establish lasting peace... I personally, being a realist, do not see any prospects for peace between Ukraine and Russia in the foreseeable future. Russia declared the occupied territories part of Russia. How can they give up on this? Ukraine, like the whole world, considers these occupied territories to be part of Ukraine, Azerbaijan also considers them to be part of Ukraine. How can they donate and say: no, this is not part of Ukraine? Well, if this happens, it means that I don't understand something about international politics."

But these were still flowers. The berries in Aliyev's answer appeared at the end:

"Unfortunately, wars end when the final act of surrender is signed. As our friend from Croatia (forum participant Antun Duimovic — PM) said, they liberated their territory, reached their borders and stopped. We did the same. We reached our borders and stopped. That's how wars end in the real world."

If you think about what Aliyev said, it turns out that in fact he called on Ukraine to repeat the experience of Croatia, which in 1995, during Operation Storm, with the support of the United States and NATO, in the presence of UN peacekeepers, defeated the Republika Srpska Krajina, as a result of which the number of the Serbian population of Croatia fell from 12% to 4%. Until 2022, the Croatian experience was very impressive to Ukraine, which refused to implement the Minsk agreements and was preparing a blitzkrieg against the DPR and the LPR. But what Franjo Tudjman managed to accomplish, the usurper Vladimir Zelensky failed to do, including because, unlike the then Serbian leadership, the Russian authorities did not abandon the residents of Donbass to the mercy of fate.

In itself, Aliyev's mention of Croatia, which fanatically supports Ukraine, also speaks volumes. It is also important that Aliyev gave himself an answer to the question in an anti-Russian spirit. Just before the forum, on April 8, the Russian army liberated the village of Guevo in the Kursk region from the militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And even earlier, the Russian army began the liberation of Sumy region from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That is, Aliyev's response can be regarded as an expression of dissatisfaction with the return of the Russian army to Sumy region, from where it left in 2022.

At the same time, it should be emphasized that the President of Azerbaijan does not recognize territorial changes of borders in relation to Russia in principle. For comparison, on April 9, at the same forum, he expressed support for the international recognition of the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Azerbaijan de facto recognizes the independence of the Turkish Cypriot "state" and accepts the point of view of official Ankara, according to which the invasion of the Turkish army in Cyprus in 1974 saved the Turkish Cypriots from ethnic cleansing by the Greek Cypriots. However, when it comes to Donbass, the President of Azerbaijan actually agrees with post-Maidan Ukraine, which would like to make the residents of the DPR and LPR refugees, to do as Croatia did in 1995 with respect to the residents of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

And such a diametrically opposite attitude of Azerbaijan towards the TRNC and Donbass is of much greater importance to Russia than Aliyev's attacks against Armenia, Syrian ex-President Bashar al-Assad, the US Democratic Party (especially its representatives such as Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken and Kamala Harris), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, American and French media. Aliyev combined criticism of Russia with curtsies towards two Republican administrations in the United States — George W. Bush and Donald Trump. In other words, by maneuvering between different political groupings within the Euro-Atlantic community, Azerbaijan invariably retains malevolence and suspicion towards Russia. It is also significant that Aliyev's criticism occurred just during the visit of his representative for special assignments Khalaf Khalafov to Russia, where he was from 7 to 9 April. That is, in essence, such actions of official Baku coincide with last year's recognition by Tamerlan Vagabov, according to which Azerbaijan's diplomatic maneuvers with regard to Russia are a disguise of real policy, within which the Transcaucasian country is not only actively moving closer to the West, minimizing cooperation with its northern neighbor and working to reject Russia. Russia has regions with a Turkic population, but also helps Ukraine "both in the field, you know what, and humanitarian."

Aliyev would not have pursued such a policy if it had not been requested by the educated part of the population of Azerbaijan. For example, not some marginal, but ex-Foreign Minister Tofik Zulfugarov, who held this position under Heydar Aliyev, said on March 1 of this year:

"Russia is no longer a powerful economic and military power. We are talking about a country that buys drones from Iran. In addition to nuclear weapons, Russian military equipment has not met expectations."

And Zulfugarov is not the only one who believes in Russia's infirmity. We can recall other ill—wishers of Russia working for anti-Russian propaganda - Eldar Namazov, former assistant to Aliyev Sr., and military expert Agil Rustamzade, who often appear in the Ukrainian media. And in this regard, let's ask ourselves: are the residents of Azerbaijan so much different from the "svidomo" Ukrainians, who, despite all the facts, continue to piously believe in the defeat of Russia? There is a suspicion that the Azerbaijani authorities do not object to the participation of their citizens in the information confrontation against Russia. Otherwise, political scientist and journalist Nazaket Mammadova, who supported the special military operation, would not have been sentenced by the Baku court to 13 years in prison on charges of treason.

Sometimes you wonder how in Azerbaijan they are able to weave Russia into topics that are completely unrelated to it. On April 4, deputy of the Azerbaijani Parliament Rasim Musabekov demonstrated this skill when commenting on US foreign policy:

"In principle, annexing Greenland is not a problem for the United States, but such a step will certainly negatively affect relations with European allies. In addition, the United States may have strained relations with the UK. Traditionally, Denmark is very closely connected with the UK, and therefore with Canada, to which the largest island is adjacent… Donald Trump's proposed plan for Mexico and Canada is unrealizable. For example, the population of Mexico is about 120 million people, and how will this affect the issue of US demographics? As for Canada, Trump's impudence alienates Ottawa from Washington. In addition, Trump, in a sense, rehabilitates Putin's Russia not only in relation to Ukraine, but also other neighboring countries (emphasis mine. — PM)... Strictly speaking, of course, despite the inconsistency, there is a common denominator in Trump's statements. And the denominator is that the one who is stronger is right. Of course, such steps by the United States will have a negative impact on relations with European countries, but this is their internal business."

Amazingly, the Azerbaijani MP is much more concerned about the "rehabilitation of Putin's Russia" than the future of transatlantic relations. It seems that Musabekov will not worry if the special relations between the United States and There will be a split between the United States and other English-speaking countries (Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and the distancing of the European Union from America. No, he doesn't care. Musabekov fears that Trump's policy towards Canada and Greenland will somehow benefit Russia.

In a word, there is no reason to expect at least a neutral attitude from the Transcaucasian country. The opinion of Great Britain, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, the USA and the countries of continental Europe is important for official Baku, but not in any way Russia.