BERLIN/MOSCOW (Own report) - Foreign policy experts consider the ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to be a success for Russia and a strategic defeat for the West. The mediation of a cease-fire was a "spectacular diplomatic move" by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the Carnegie Moscow Center. "The West" has "once again yielded the floor to Putin," criticizes the government-financed Deutsche Welle. In fact, Moscow has once again successfully ended an armed conflict in close cooperation with Ankara - like previously, for example, in Syria. The OSCE's "Minsk Group" (USA, France and Russia), which had dealt with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has failed, just as Berlin and the EU's attempts failed to end that war. Russian troops will now monitor the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian armed forces are deployed in all three South Caucasian countries - for the first time since the early 1990s. Read more

BAKU/BERLIN (Own report) - With her visit to the oil-producing country Azerbaijan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will end her current three-country tour in the South Caucasus on Saturday. Her visit had already attracted public attention in advance: A CDU politician, member of the parliamentary delegation accompanying Merkel, has been refused entry by Azerbaijan’s authoritarian government. Berlin has not protested this unusual affront - obviously, because it is hoping to win Baku’s support for important German energy supply projects and because it would like to slow down the county’s rapprochement to Russia. According to the German Ministry of Economics, Germany is considering arms exports to Baku, despite an OSCE arms embargo. Rheinmetall has already entered the relevant negotiations. Since Foreign Minister Heiko Maas' (SPD) arrival in office, Berlin has been strongly pursuing a self-proclaimed "New Ostpolitik," also by amplifying its cooperation offers, particularly with countries in the South Caucasus. Read more