By Alexander Pracht
Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and head of Russia’s delegation in nominal peace talks with Ukraine, sparked outrage in Azerbaijan after likening Russia’s war in Ukraine to the decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. In an interview with the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT on Monday, Medinsky warned of global catastrophe if a permanent peace deal is not reached with Ukraine.
“If we don’t agree on a real peace and just sign some kind of truce… then it will be like that disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Karabakh. That region [southeastern Ukraine] would turn into a giant Karabakh,” he said. “Eventually, Ukraine together with NATO will try to take it back, and that will be the end of our planet, that will be a nuclear war. We don’t want to have a pretext, a giant Karabakh, recognized by nobody, over which a nuclear war might break out.”
His remarks triggered a sharp response from Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, which accused Medinsky of distorting historical facts and misrepresenting the status of the ՚Karabakh region՚.
“The remarks [by Vladimir Medinsky] that distorted facts regarding the former Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict and portrayed the Karabakh region as a disputed territory, were met with regret and astonishment,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizade said in a statement on Monday.
Russia has never formally recognized the former Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, acknowledging it as part of Azerbaijan, though it supported the basic principles of settlement within the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe’s Minsk Group framework, including Nagorno-Karabakh’s right to self-determination.
Medinsky’s remarks found no reaction from Armenia’s Foreign Ministry.
The current war in Ukraine began in February 2014, following a pro-Western revolution in Kyiv. Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimea region and supporting armed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas area. The conflict escalated dramatically in February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Medinsky also led the Russian delegation during early, ultimately unsuccessful peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in 2022.
Recent negotiations, presented as peace talks, are widely seen as having been initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump. However, Russia put forward what experts describe as unworkable ultimatums, including a full Ukrainian renunciation of five regions, some of which Russia has not even fully occupied, such as the regional capitals of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The demands also include Ukrainian neutrality, a refusal to seek Russian reparations, and a broad range of other unacceptable concessions. Analysts argue that such terms indicate a lack of genuine interest in peace on Russia’s part. They also point to the asymmetry in the delegations: while Kyiv sent its foreign and defense ministers to the Istanbul talks, Moscow was represented by Vladimir Medinsky, a Ukraine-born former culture minister with no significant current role in Putin’s policymaking team.
