Voice of East<p><strong>Russian-Azerbaijani Tensions Are Quickly Heating Up Over Ukraine</strong></p><p><strong>Russian-Azerbaijani Tensions Are Quickly Heating Up Over Ukraine</strong></p><p>By <a href="https://voiceofeast.net/?s=Andrew+Korybko&x=0&y=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Andrew Korybko</a></p><p><strong>None of this would be happening if the US didn’t squeeze Russia out of the Zangezur Corridor with Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s assistance.</strong></p><p></p><p>Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received a <a href="https://president.az/en/articles/view/69583" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">call from Zelensky</a> on Sunday in which they condemned “the deliberate airstrikes by Russia on an oil storage facility owned by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR in Ukraine, as well as other Azerbaijani facilities and a gas compressor station transporting Azerbaijani gas to Ukraine.” This follows late July’s agreement for the <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-imports-azerbaijani-gas-for-first-time-as-storage-runs-low/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">first-ever export</a> of Azerbaijani gas to Ukraine via the Trans-Balkan Pipeline and comes amidst worsening Russian-Azerbaijani tensions.</p><p>To simplify the second-mentioned, Russia’s arrest of suspected ethnic Azeri criminals prompted Azerbaijan’s arrest of several Sputnik employees on charges of espionage, which occurred in the shadow of the US’ now-successful ploy to replace Russia’s role in the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace process. What Baku called the Zangezur Corridor, which was supposed to be guarded by Russia <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64384#sel=12:1:6Dn,12:69:l33" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">per the ceasefire</a> that it mediated in November 2020, is now the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP).</p><p>This analysis <a href="https://voiceofeast.net/2025/08/09/the-tripp-corridor-threatens-to-undermine-russias-broader-regional-position/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">here</a> enumerates five background briefings elaborating on the aforesaid insight and then explains how TRIPP threatens to undermine Russia’s position along its entire southern periphery. It was <a href="https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/08/8/7525327/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">right around the time</a> that TRIPP was agreed to that Russia struck SOCAR-owned facilities in Ukraine. Although Russia maintains that it only hits targets of military value, which the Kremlin considers Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to be, Azerbaijan might have interpreted this as a political message.</p><p>From their perspective, Russia could have signalled its increasing displeasure with Azerbaijan but also possibly demonstrated how vulnerable Azerbaijan’s energy infrastructure would be in the worst-case scenario of their tensions escalating into conflict, whether conventional or unconventional. Aliyev alluded to his adherence to this interpretation by jointly condemning the strike with Zelensky, perhaps emboldened by TRIPP, which is arguably an unprecedented US-Turkish powerplay against Russia.</p><p>In what might be meant as his country’s indirect but nonetheless “plausibly deniable” response to Russia’s supposed political message, reputable Azerbaijani media outlet <a href="https://caliber.az/post/rossiya-bet-po-azerbajdzhanskim-nefti-i-gaze-v-ukraine-azerbajdzhan-gotovit-otvet" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Caliber</a> cited “reliable sources” to report on the same day as their call that Azerbaijan might arm Ukraine if Russian policy doesn’t shift. They added that “It should be noted that the Russian armed forces have begun to consistently strike at Azerbaijan’s energy facilities in Ukraine. This situation forces Baku to take countermeasures.”</p><p>Accordingly, Russian-Azerbaijani tensions are quickly heating up over Ukraine, but this perceptible (though nevertheless “plausibly deniable”) escalation might not lead to anything more in this direction if the <a href="https://voiceofeast.net/2025/08/07/whats-responsible-for-the-upcoming-putin-trump-summit/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">upcoming Putin-Trump Summit</a> successfully freezes or ends the conflict. In that scenario, Azerbaijani energy infrastructure in Ukraine would remain in Russia’s crosshairs while Ukrainian fingers might be placed on the triggers of Azerbaijani arms, but nothing will happen so long as hostilities don’t re-erupt.</p><p>In any case, Ukraine is just a theatre for de facto proxy warfare between Russia and Azerbaijan (whether the only one or the first of several remains to be seen), whose new tensions are due to TRIPP more than anything else. TRIPP has thus provoked a Russian-Azerbaijani security dilemma that risks destabilizing the region and perhaps beyond if it isn’t soon resolved, but none of this would be happening if the US didn’t squeeze Russia out of the Zangezur Corridor with Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s assistance.</p> <p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed </em><em>in this article are auth</em><em>or’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of </em><em><strong>Voice of East</strong></em><em>.</em></p> <p><strong><a href="https://www.udemy.com/course/diploma-in-business-management/?referralCode=30A1A013F649D643212D" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management</a></strong></p><p></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/armenia/" target="_blank">#Armenia</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/azerbaijan/" target="_blank">#Azerbaijan</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/geopolitics/" target="_blank">#Geopolitics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/russia/" target="_blank">#Russia</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/ukraine/" target="_blank">#Ukraine</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/usa/" target="_blank">#USA</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://voiceofeast.net/tag/zangezur-corridor/" target="_blank">#ZangezurCorridor</a></p>