At a meeting of the Armenian government on May 27, 2012, a decision was made to provide Russian border guards with land plots in Zangezur, or rather Meghri, Kafan, and Tekhe, for free use. It is in this area that the "Zangezur Corridor" should pass, which will restore the transport communications of Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic interrupted during the first Karabakh war. The border department of the FSB of the Russian Federation should ensure the functioning of the corridor.

However, whether the Russian border guards will comply with the agreements on the organization of the corridor or will sabotage them is a difficult question. Moreover, in the Russian Federation itself, the functioning of the Zangezur corridor, despite the seemingly Russian benefits (direct land connection with Turkey), is perceived ambiguously.

To understand what else might be the interests of certain forces in Russia in the South Caucasus region, let us make an excursion into the recent world economic history.

As you know, by the 80s of the last century, Japan became the "second economy in the world". Trade between Japan and European countries increased sharply, however, all of it went by the sea - mainly through the Suez Canal. Indeed, there was no special "logistic" sense to transport goods from island Japan in another way, including by land through Eurasia.

However, by the 90s of the last century, Japan began to yield industrial primacy to the so-called "Asian tigers" - South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. But the goods still went along the usual sea routes. And the land "trans-Eurasian" routes by land then also did not have much importance. In addition, same South Korea is in fact isolated from the mainland by land from the DPRK, which is in hostile relations with it.

The next stage is the beginning of China's transformation into a "world workshop" already at the beginning of the new millennium. But initially, it was the coastal regions of China that developed, including those where special economic zones were created. Therefore, initially, despite the emerging interest in the land trans-Eurasian routes until about 2005-2006, from the point of view of logistics, nothing fundamentally changed. From the Chinese industrial centers located right on the seashore and at the mouths of large rivers, goods were loaded onto ships and went to Europe, along the usual routes, through the same Suez Canal.

Gradually, the development of the inner, deep continental regions of China accelerated sharply. Moreover, there were raw materials here, as well as the development of the transport infrastructure. Such rapidly developing industrial centers as Chongqing and now the notorious Wuhan is located "in the depths of the continent." They are still connected with the coast by river arteries, but industrial centers that do not have such a connection are rapidly developing, in the same Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the west of the PRC.

As a result, it has become logistically expensive and costly to transport goods from "internal" and especially western China by land transport to ports, load them onto ships and then "drive" them "around Eurasia" through the Suez Canal. It is much easier to load containers with goods on railway platforms and send them to Europe "without stopping or reloading" by land, or similarly transport goods by land in heavy trucks.

Somewhere around 2006-2008. it became obvious that the need for overland communication between China and Europe would be enormous. But only two countries - Russia and Iran, which are in an alliance with each other practically "block" all the land routes of Eurasia in the vast area from the Arctic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. It is possible to "slip through" this "land barrier" bypassing Russia and Iran only in one place - through the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus. And the struggle for this region has sharply intensified.

It is symbolic that Russia's aggression against Georgia in 2008 took place during the Beijing Olympics. Russia's occupation of the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region and the fact that Russian troops were stationed on the main highway and not far from the railway transit routes passing through Georgia was like a signal to investors - "The Georgian corridor is unreliable." It can be "blocked" at any time. At the same time, the construction of the strategically important Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway was clearly inhibited and sabotaged.

It became obvious that for the full-fledged functioning of the transit Eurasian corridor through Georgia, firstly, the final elimination of unstable separatist zones is needed, and secondly, a "duplicate route" in case any emergency occurs on the main corridor.

Nevertheless, having destabilized the situation in Georgia, Russia immediately declared itself to be essentially a "land monopoly" on the Eurasian routes. Moreover, it has become interesting specifically for Chinese companies for its resource potential. In fact, with an eye on the use of the colossal Russian raw material resources, China could place its production facilities farther and farther to the West. And in the future, and in the Russian Federation itself. Thus, the "Russian-Chinese link", given the status of the Russian Federation as a nuclear superpower, could well become the basis for the revival of Russian geopolitical "great power", and real, and not fake.

But the West also understood this very well. And they did everything to ensure that the Russian Federation fell into the same "trap of separatism", which is carefully placed in the South Caucasus. Fortunately, the “fifth column”, tactically “cunning”, but strategically absolutely narrow-minded, in the form of an Armenian lobby could easily be used in such games.

The Maidan turn in 2014 in Kyiv had a clear anti-Russian orientation and was intended to withdraw Ukraine from under Russian influence. And the Kremlin "strategists", influenced by the Armenian lobby, with its obsession with "legitimizing the redrawing of borders", did not find anything better than to apply the same methodology to Ukraine as they did to Georgia. They decided to put under control two "scraps" of the territory, annexing one of them (Crimea) and, in return, receiving an unstable border and a hostile state inhabited, in fact, by the same people.

At the same time, a blow was struck at the most promising for Russia's "Orthodox project", the gathering of strategically important lands around the Russian Federation. After all, at the suggestion of the same “brothers-Armenians” who was obsessed with supporting separatism, Orthodox Georgia was turned into a country hostile to Russia by “biting off territories”.

Those. obeying the Armenian lobby, Russia "shot itself twice in both feet" in 2008 and 2014. becoming, in fact, a "geopolitical cripple", without prospects and without opportunities to take advantage of the unique historical chance of building a new Eurasian "super-empire".

Conflicts with Ukraine and the "incomprehensible situation" in Belarus put all the most promising transit projects through Russia from China into question. Since the flow of goods may well "run into the front lines" on the western borders of Russia. The West, the same USA, clearly made it clear to the Kremlin that even as a supplier of raw materials and a raw material appendage to Europe, they are ready to tolerate the Russian Federation "out of great mercy." Hence, the slowdown of the "Nord Stream" and the preference for it of the Southern Gas Corridor, passing through the same South Caucasus.

The second Karabakh war and the elimination of "Artsakh", the first separatist project in the South Caucasus, raised the issue of withdrawing the Georgian corridor "from under attack" by eliminating separatist formations in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, which will be facilitated by the opening of the duplicate Zangezur corridor. This will finally make the route through the South Caucasus the main one between China and Europe.

The importance of the corridor through the South Caucasus is understood "in advance" by the same Chinese investors. They are beginning to give preference to plans for the location of production facilities, not in the Russian Federation, but in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and other Central Asian states, and the routes of the main "commodity and logistics flow" precisely through the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus. In such conditions, Russia and its allied Iran (which, due to the opening of the Zangezur corridor, are losing the role of a "monopoly in communications" between the main territory of Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan) have to "invent" new cunning combinations to become "irreplaceable."

However, the power of the Russian Federation is no longer what it was before 2008 (before the Georgian adventure) and until 2014 (before the Ukrainian-Crimean-Donbas adventure). If only because now Russia is forced to keep its best combat-ready units on the border with Ukraine and from simply "enough" for other directions. By the way, the recent aggravation of the situation around Donbas and the demonstrative pulling of Russian troops to the Ukrainian border, and their subsequent withdrawal of troops did not happen by chance on the eve of the aggravation of the situation around Zangezur.

Russia and the West (via Ukraine), as it were, were demonstrating "seriousness of intentions," essentially psychological blackmail. And Russia, to all appearances, has given up a little in this direction.

But the more important is the issue of corridors through the South Caucasus. Recent "traffic jams" in the Suez Canal have shown that the importance of these corridors, as well as the overland trans-Eurasian routes, will only grow. It is no coincidence that the Russian Federation urgently rushed to modernize its railways in the territories close to China, the same BAM is also an argument in the dispute over "Eurasian transit". However, the fact that these Russian corridors will run into hostile Ukraine and unstable Belarus nullify all other efforts of Russia to position itself as a “reliable transit country”.

Hence the conclusion - to force the West to come to terms with the Eurasian transit through the Russian Federation, Kremlin politicians may well start "games" on transit corridors in the South Caucasus.

It is within the framework of such "games" that there may be "surprises" after the deployment of border guards in Zangezur. And here a lot will depend on Armenia itself and the Armenian people. If the Armenians continue to be a hopeless "expendable material" in other people's geopolitical games, which they first use and then "throw" without pity, then they can continue to listen to revanchists and nationalists. In the interests of the normal development of the Republic of Armenia, in close cooperation with the other peoples of the Caucasus, the Zangezur corridor must be working. That flow of goods, resources, and investments that will pass through Zangezur "headlong" will be enough to provide for the 2 million Armenians remaining in the Republic of Armenia and to stop the desolation of the country.

KavkazPlus