What are Zelensky and Aliyev preparing for?

When a "leak" appeared in some Ukrainian media that on December 15, 2021, at the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky invited his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev to visit Ukraine, and then there was a proposal to hold a summit of the heads of Ukraine, Turkey and Azerbaijan in Kiev in February in connection with the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Kiev, Baku and Ankara, this was perceived in the context of the peace initiative mediation between Kiev and Moscow put forward by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The intrigue was laid in the scenario development of this project.

Ankara approached it "broadly", pointing to the relations between Moscow and Kiev and putting the problems of Donbass outside of the equation. According to some Turkish sources, Erdogan intended to implement a project resembling the Transcaucasian formula "3+3" (Russia, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia) without the participation of the USA and the EU in the regional security system.

In this regard, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov admitted that the leaders of Russia and Turkey may discuss Ankara's proposal, recalling that the Kremlin, represented by the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, has already reacted to this, saying that Russia is not a party to this conflict. Thus the problem was narrowed down. Ankara's mediation was perceived only at the theoretical level exclusively in the Kiev-Donbass formula and outside the format of the Minsk Agreements.

But the plots of intrigue were not limited to this. Erdogan was well aware and understands that he has no real chance of becoming a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. But from his point of view, this gesture was supposed to demonstrate the strengthening of Turkey's positions on a fairly wide perimeter of nearby territories - Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Kiev is also actively playing in this direction. According to the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to Ukraine Elmira Akhundova, on September 14, 2020, the President of Ukraine signed a decree on the new National Security Strategy of the country, in paragraph 36 of which Azerbaijan together with Turkey are recognised as strategic partners of Ukraine.

And on July 30, 2021, Decree No. 448/2021 "On the strategy of Ukraine's foreign Policy" was signed. There are about 10 points in this document - 57, 113, 114, 115, etc., in which Azerbaijan and Turkey are again named as strategic partners in different directions. According to Akhundova, "in our country, the decrees of the President of Ukraine were met with great satisfaction."

Playwrights have known since the time of Anton Chekhov that you can't put a loaded gun on stage if no one means to shoot it. The political meaning of this expression: in a political intrigue, all the details should work for the main idea, there should be nothing accidental in it. And in this case, the "gun went off" when CSTO peacekeepers were introduced into Kazakhstan, which was ambiguously perceived (albeit at an unofficial level) in Baku and Ankara.

And the "Turkic machine" quickly spun. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev "unexpectedly" paid a working visit to Kiev. This was his first visit to Ukraine after Maidan in Kiev in February 2014. In addition, the visit took place against the backdrop of NATO-Russia talks, which touched upon the security architecture of the post-Soviet space, in particular Ukraine and Georgia, but without Kiev and Tbilisi.

Moreover, it turned out, perhaps not by chance, that another round of escalation appeared on the line of the Azerbaijani-Armenian military confrontation. According to some reports, Yerevan has appealed to Moscow, Washington and the OSCE monitoring mission in this regard.

But for some reason, Baku began to assume that this was supposedly the first step towards the appearance of the CSTO military on the territory of Armenia, which purely by chance turned out to be the chairman of the CSTO these days.

Nevertheless, Aliyev began to associate these actions with "Armenia's ability to get help from somewhere" and threatened such "helpers" with some kind of retaliatory punishments. If desired, his words can be interpreted as a threat, not only to Armenia, but also to other CSTO member states.

Now about the visible part of Aliyev's visit to Kiev. According to the results of negotiations with Zelensky, Aliyev stated that he was ready to cooperate with Kiev "in all spheres”. Zelensky clarified that the parties signed a declaration expressing their readiness to jointly counter hybrid threats, as well as "ensure peace and stability in the Black Sea-Caspian region and beyond”. According to him, we are talking about "the creation of a transport corridor, possibly within the framework of GUAM, which unites Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova”.

By the way, Zelensky spoke about plans to create a transport corridor between Kiev and Chisinau earlier at a meeting with Moldovan President Maia Sandu. "In the future, this corridor will shorten the way between the two cities to five or six hours, becoming the shortest route from the Central Region of Ukraine to the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe," the website of the office of the President of Ukraine reports. However, at that time there was no talk of including Azerbaijan and Georgia in the system.

In general, the results of the negotiations are solid: four memoranda, an agreement and a joint declaration, which indicates that Aliyev's visit to Kiev was carefully worked out in advance, although, apparently, its dates were moved.

And the behind-the-scenes part of these negotiations will not be known soon. The personal meeting of the leaders of the countries was held behind closed doors. Baku and Kiev will wait for the end of the cycle of "big showdowns in big politics" and only then they will announce their other geopolitical decisions, which they probably have. We will wait.