Clouds gather over Garegin II and the ring tightens around Zelenskyy Caliber.Az weekly review

The Caliber.Az editorial team presents the latest episode of the Events programme with Murad Abiyev.

Azerbaijan – Armenia

The process of peaceful settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia continues — and is now unfolding on a qualitatively new level. We have already reported on the visit of Armenian experts to Baku within the framework of the Peace Bridge Initiative. Meanwhile, in Gabala, the twelfth meeting of the commission on the delimitation of the Azerbaijani–Armenian border took place, chaired by the deputy prime ministers of the two countries — Shahin Mustafayev and Mher Grigoryan.

During the meeting, the sides noted the previously reached agreement — following their last session — to launch a set of works on delimiting the state border starting from the northern section, at the point where the borders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia intersect, and proceeding southwards to the Armenia–Azerbaijan–Iran border.

As you may recall, earlier meetings between the deputy prime ministers were held directly on the border. Later, they began travelling to each other’s adjacent towns, and now discussions are taking place in locations not linked to the border at all. This marks yet another step towards mutual trust.

Meanwhile, in Armenia, the confrontation between Pashinyan and Garegin II is entering its final stage. Nine bishops of the Armenian Church have issued a new statement addressed to Garegin II, accusing him of covering up the improper behaviour of the Catholicos’s chief of staff, Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan.

Pashinyan received at his residence the priests who signed the statement and thanked them for their principled stance. Meanwhile, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Ruben Rubinyan, was even more outspoken: “Ktrich Nersisyan must stop his campaign against the Church and start packing his things,” he said, expressing support for the outraged bishops.

According to Zhoghovurd, a publication linked to the Karabakh clan, Pashinyan has already identified two potential candidates to succeed Garegin II as Catholicos. The high office is reportedly being considered for Archbishop Hovnan Terteryan, Primate of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the United States, and Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia.

Interestingly, Aram I has neither denied the information about the offer made to him nor his willingness to take part in the Catholicos election — despite having condemned the Armenian authorities’ campaign against the Church this summer and having expressed support for Etchmiadzin.

Thus, it may be said that Pashinyan has very deftly managed to identify and exploit the contradictions within the Armenian Church — including between its own patriarchs — to his advantage, and, in this case, to the benefit of Armenia as a whole.

Ukraine – Russia

Meanwhile, developments continue around Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to reports, following a meeting between the American delegation and Ukrainian officials in Geneva, the plan was reduced to 19 points and now reflects Ukraine’s interests more clearly. Washington is currently revising the document. Next week, Steve Witkoff is expected to discuss the updated version with his counterparts in Moscow, while Trump’s new special envoy for Ukraine, Driscoll, will travel to Kyiv for the same purpose.

At the same time, Vladimir Putin stated at the CSTO leaders’ summit in Bishkek that signing settlement documents with the Ukrainian authorities is pointless. “Moscow wants to reach an agreement with Kyiv, but legally this is impossible right now,” Putin said, once again emphasising that, from Moscow’s point of view, President Zelenskyy lacks legitimacy.

A notable development was the leak of phone conversations between Russian and US representatives, suggesting that the American plan had in fact been drafted entirely by the Russian side. In this sense, nothing shocking — the text had already made that abundantly clear.

But one detail is particularly striking. The call between US presidential envoy Witkoff and Russian presidential aide Ushakov is completely detached — not edited out, but detached — from the broader context. The two diplomats speak as if they were discussing peace in Ukraine for the very first time, as if there had not been months of intensive diplomatic work between Washington and Moscow: delegation meetings, special envoys’ visits, phone conversations between leaders, and even their almost legendary meeting in Anchorage, for example.

One is inevitably led to two possible conclusions. The first is that the leaked conversation is fake. However, this is not the case, as neither side has denied its authenticity. The alternative conclusion is that all previous talks and discussions between Moscow and Washington concerned anything but Ukraine. Yet this, too, sounds absurd.

There is, however, a third possibility — and it seems to me the most plausible. Paradoxically, the conflict in Ukraine is not actually at the centre of Donald Trump’s attention. More precisely, it matters to him insofar as it needs to be resolved, but he is not particularly interested in the details. It seems as though Trump’s key diplomatic tactic is a kind of cavalry charge towards Ukraine — and he is quite happy to leave most of the programme to Moscow. When Moscow fails to deliver, he pushes it along with various sanctions. The logic is simple: either succeed on the battlefield, or present a plan that is at least somewhat reasonable for discussion with Kyiv. It appears that drafting a peace plan was also set by Washington as one of the conditions for Moscow.

The remarkably careless — at times even flippant — tone in which the plan was written likewise suggests that Moscow takes little pleasure in fulfilling Washington’s request. Yet having complied with this condition one way or another, Moscow leaks the conversations to demonstrate that it was the initiator of the plan — effectively, that it is leading the negotiations. In turn, Trump’s good-natured reaction to the leak indicates that he does not particularly care what anyone thinks; what matters to him is that the process moves forward.

All of this, however, does not mean that the entire story is merely an imitation of activity. The plan — however it was drafted — does exist, which means Trump will use it to pressure Kyiv. And now, as Zelenskyy, backed by the West, attempts to evade the key points of Trump’s plan, Washington has dealt him yet another painful blow. The anti-corruption bodies accountable to the Americans — NABU and SAP — conducted a search of the apartment of the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, as part of an ongoing investigation.

This is, of course, not proof of his guilt. Yet, in any case, it is another serious blow to Zelenskyy’s reputation. As a result, the President of Ukraine was forced to dismiss Yermak. Zelenskyy has lost a key figure in his team — the man who effectively shaped the entire architecture of Ukraine’s diplomatic resistance to Russia.

With a high degree of likelihood, one can expect that Zelenskyy will not agree to sign capitulation terms. And this means that NABU and SAP’s next target may be him.