VLAD WHO?:

DW: The fighting between Ayerbaijan and Armenia falls at a time when Russia is distracted by heavy military defeats in the Ukraine. It is no coincidence, right?

Hanna Notte: I think it's absolutely no coincidence. This is well timed from the Azerbaijani side. They are using a window of opportunity where Russia is very much distracted. It's actually not the first time this is happening. The Azeris engaged in more provocative behavior, not the kinds of strikes, but sort of upping the ante over Nagorno-Karabakh early into the war in Ukraine, testing a little bit the limits of how far they could push things. And now we're seeing this bigger escalation.

At the same time, it does make sense to suggest that when Russia is so heavily preoccupied with Ukraine, when its political, diplomatic bandwidth is very much focused on that conflict, and its position is deteriorating, as you rightly pointed out, that smaller actors in Russia's neighborhood will react to that and will test limits in some of those conflicts in which Russia has been historically a power broker.

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