In an interview earlier in September, the Armenian leader explained that with Russia in desperate need of arms and ammunition, it could not supply Armenia, which has been totally dependent on them, even if it wanted to do so.

“The security systems and the allies we have relied on for many years” were “ineffective,” Pashinyan said in his speech to the Armenian people after the attack.

The Aliyev regime offered Putin a devil’s bargain—“you give us Nagorno-Karabakh, and we make Armenia into a second Belarus,” the senior foreign ministry official put it.

If Moscow comes to the rescue now, it will only be because there is no alternative for Armenia. Many Armenian analysts believe the Azerbaijani attack is only a first step aimed at a Russian-sponsored overthrow of the Pashinyan government in street protests fed by the anger of displaced Karabakh Armenians.

“This was their coup attempt inside Armenia,” says Eric Hacopian, an Armenian-American political analyst based in Yerevan. “We were placed under a Sword of Damocles—move away from the West or suffer ethnic cleansing. For them, stopping a Western pivot is more important. Armenia is the prize.”

As dark as the future may seem, there is another narrow road out of this tragic situation. The Russians have discredited themselves as a power by relying on the Turks. Georgia, which has also been maneuvering between the West and Russia as the war in Ukraine stalls, is watching all this closely. There is an opening to push back Russian control and influence in the South Caucasus, but it requires a far more assertive Western presence.

At this moment, the Armenian senior official told me, the United States “is the only player that can really change the situation on the ground.” The EU has a role as well, particularly as it will host renewed talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the meeting of the European Political Community on October 5 in Spain. European leaders have clearly denounced Azerbaijani aggression and warned against further ethnic violence.

The regime in Baku has largely insulated itself from such pressure through its role as a supplier of oil and gas to Europe, transported by pipeline through Georgia and to Turkey. Aliyev counts on the desperation of Europe and the illusion of a pro-Western Azerbaijan to conceal the reality of his axis with Putin and Erdogan.

But the Azerbaijani regime is fragile. It is a one-man show, sitting on dwindling reserves of oil and gas in old fields, as other energy sources for Europe rapidly come online. A proposal to link the Azerbaijani-based pipelines to those of Kazakhstan via the trans-Caspian Sea pipeline seems stalled. And Moscow is pushing hard instead, with nominal Azerbaijani consent, to create north-south rail and pipeline routes that will link to Iran.

This suggests that serious pressure on Azerbaijan, and in turn on Turkey and Israel as its arms suppliers, could yield results. One option is the threat of sanctions but perhaps more effective would be the insistence that Baku allow the introduction of international peacekeeping forces, along with U.S. and EU observers, to replace the Russians.

It may be equally essential to manifest support for the Pashinyan government, which will face increasing Russian-backed internal opposition. A far more massive U.S.-led relief effort for the tens of thousands of Karabakh Armenians is an immediate need. But also crucial is to replace the Russians as guarantors of Armenia’s established boundaries, including resistance to the forced creation of an Azerbaijani corridor that would seal off Armenia’s border with Iran. Normalization of relations with Turkey, opening that border to trade and transport, is long overdue, but it can only happen with Americans providing border security forces.

Undoubtedly, the Biden administration has other priorities but the situation in the South Caucasus is intimately tied to the war in Ukraine. The United States has tended to think about this crucial region too little and too late. But a strategic opportunity still exists. The alternative is an even greater human tragedy.

Daniel Sneider is a Lecturer in International Policy and East Asian Studies at Stanford University. He is a former foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and served as Moscow bureau chief from 1990-1994, where he covered the first Nagorno Karabakh war. He just returned from a visit to the region.

Image: Shutterstock.