evidence: Azerbaijan’s interest is primarily a local one—the Zangezur corridor connecting Azerbaijan, through Armenian territory, with its landlocked exclave the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic. But the broader relevance of the South Caucasus is as a critical land bridge linking the Black and Caspian Seas, and the European world and Asia. As such, it is an area of geopolitical competition. Russia’s August 2008 invasion of the sovereign nation of Georgia was an attempt to re-establish regional hegemony. Moscow’s military presence in the region has defrosted numerous local conflicts, most recently giving rise to the second Karabakh war in the Autumn of 2020. The militarisation of the region, including by the presence of Russian troops (2 000 in the Nagorno-Karabakh, 3 500 in Gyumri and Erebuni, and 7 000 in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region [so called South Ossetia]) increased local defence spending (according to SIPRI, Armenia spent a total of 7.8 billion USD [an average of 3.7% of GDP] and Azerbaijan 35.1 billion USD [3.5% of GDP] between 1997 and 2021) has heightened regional instability. But the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine has offered new opportunities to reverse this trend.