Where Asia Meets Europe, Allies Become Rivals in a Tangle of Interests

In the volatile Caucasus region, Russia and Iran, often seen as united in their aims, are vying to secure trade routes and influence. That leaves Western countries facing an unusual dilemma.

By Anton Troianovski

Photographs by Emile Ducke

Russia’s domestic intelligence agency patrols the meandering river, alongside cameras, watchtowers and three rows of barbed-wire fencing.

But Russia itself is almost 200 miles away. And by January, the Russian officers will start leaving.

This is the border between Iran and Armenia, a 30-mile strip that is a pivot point of a head-spinning geopolitical shift. Here in the Caucasus, the mountainous region where Europe meets Asia, Russia and Iran are increasingly seen as rivals, while Western countries are — surprisingly — finding some common cause with Tehran.

This complex, multicountry knot of interests and influences challenges Western conventional wisdom about alliances and could be upended yet again by the re-election of Donald J. Trump in the United States.

In a rare interview last week, Iran’s ambassador in Armenia, Mehdi Sobhani, acknowledged the diverging interests of Russia and Iran in the region, rather than the “strategic partnership” they often profess, banding together against the United States.

“We are not allies,” Mr. Sobhani said. “We have some differences, and we have some mutual interests. It doesn’t mean that we are allied.”

Armenia, a majority-Christian democracy, is at the center of the Russia-Iran rivalry. It is also unsettled by the prospect of renewed war with its archenemy, Azerbaijan, which is taking a major step on the world stage this week by hosting global leaders for the annual United Nations climate conference known as COP.

Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. The country has been unsettled by the prospect of renewed conflict with its archenemy, Azerbaijan.

A Sunday church service at a monastery in the southern Armenian region of Syunik. Armenia, a majority-Christian democracy, has found itself at the center of the Russia-Iran rivalry.

In the last year, Armenia has looked to Iran, its southern neighbor, as the main guarantor of its sovereignty, while Azerbaijan, a majority-Muslim, secular autocracy, has been deepening military ties with Iran’s own nemesis, Israel.

Russia is racing to contain Iran’s expanding influence in Armenia, a former Soviet republic at a crossroads of trade routes that Moscow needs to replace Western imports. Complicating matters, some Western countries currently in conflict with Iran see their interests in the Caucasus — preventing war and reducing Russian influence — aligned with those of Tehran.

Markus Ritter, who heads a European Union mission monitoring Armenia’s borders, said the Iranians “are here in the region, the best friends of the Armenians.” While Russia and Azerbaijan bristle at the European presence, he said, Iran seems to accept it.

“It’s very complicated here,” he notes.

In the coming Trump presidency, Armenians fear, a harsher U.S. policy toward Iran could ricochet against their country and embolden Azerbaijan. If the current conflict between Iran and Israel, fueled by the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, escalates into a full-scale war, they also worry that Tehran would be less able to protect Armenia.

Until recently, many Armenians saw Russia as their guarantor. Russia was a haven during the Armenian genocide a century ago. After the Soviet Union’s fall, Russia kept a military base in Armenia and guards at its borders. In 2020, when Azerbaijan waged a 44-day war against Armenia to retake the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the mediation of President Vladimir V. Putin and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers brought the fighting to an end.

But then Russia invaded Ukraine, leaving it distracted and weakened in the Caucasus. When Azerbaijan last year again attacked Nagorno-Karabakh — a breakaway Armenian enclave within Azerbaijani territory — Russian forces stood by and later departed.

A military cemetery in Yerevan, where soldiers killed during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are buried. When Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karabakh last year, Russia did not intervene.

A newly built Iranian trade center on the outskirts of Yerevan. Russia is trying to contain Iran’s expanding influence in Armenia.

The latest round of tensions over the region’s future revolves around a thin strip of Armenian land, Syunik Province, snaking south to the border with Iran. The road from Yerevan, the capital, passes berms, machine gun nests and Armenian flags on hilltops. It is bounded on both sides by Azerbaijani territory.

Clogging the winding road is a stream of Iranian trucks.

For the moment, the road is a key route north from the Persian Gulf and critical for exporting Iranian goods to Russia and to Europe. But it is also where Russia and Azerbaijan want to establish an east-west route toward Turkey that would be outside Armenia’s control — a route that Armenians fear Azerbaijan could take by force.

“It’s quite the peculiar situation,” said Alen Shadunts, an Iran specialist at the American University of Armenia. “Iran, on the one hand, is moving towards a strategic partnership with Russia in other areas, but in the South Caucasus, there is an evident disalignment of interests and positions.”

Armenia rejects the idea of any road or rail corridor on its territory that it does not control. Iran is also opposed, fearing the blocking of its northern border. When Russia’s foreign minister called on Armenia to accept the corridor in August, Iran summoned Russia’s ambassador in protest — a rare display of discord between Moscow and Tehran.

Trucks waiting to cross the Armenia-Iran border. The Syunik region includes a road north from the Persian Gulf, a critical route for exporting Iranian goods to Russia and to Europe.

Mehdi Sobhani, Iran’s ambassador to Armenia, at the Iranian Embassy in Yerevan. Of Tehran’s regional relations with Moscow, he said: “We have some differences, and we have some mutual interests. It doesn’t mean that we are allied.”

“We cannot accept the change of the international border,” said Mr. Sobhani, the Iranian ambassador.

Iran and Russia also appear out of sync in the Middle East, where Mr. Putin has tried to position Russia as a mediator between Israel and Iran, rather than throwing his support behind Tehran. Still, officials in Moscow insist that the two countries remain united in opposing what both see as Western hegemony.

“Russia and Iran are allies in the broad sense of the word,” said Konstantin Zatulin, a Russian lawmaker, “which does not at all exclude some differences in the details.”

On Armenia’s southern border, however, the competition between Russia and Iran is playing out in real time. Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the F.S.B., still patrols the frontier.

When a Times reporter and photographer visited this month, the border settlement of Agarak was celebrating its 75th anniversary. It owes its origins to a Soviet copper mine.

Russians joined Armenians in packing into a municipal office for early-afternoon toasts. The mayor, Khachatur Andreasyan, raised a glass of 10-year Ararat brandy to the Russians: “Thank you for being here, thank you for working with us,” he said. A Russian diplomat in attendance, Igor Titov, hailed the “heroic and hardworking” locals.

Celebrations for the 75th anniversary of Agarak, which owes its origins to a Soviet copper mine.

Mayor Khachatur Andreasyan, center left, and the governor of Syunik, Robert Ghukasyan, right, making a toast during the anniversary celebrations.

It felt like the glimmer of a passing era. Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, announced an agreement with Mr. Putin last month under which Russia would withdraw its guards from the border crossing at Agarak by January. Earlier this year, Mr. Pashinyan said he was freezing Armenia’s participation in a Russian-led military alliance.

Mayor Andreasyan made it clear that he was looking elsewhere when it came to security.

“We know that if something happens, Iran will definitely be with us,” the mayor said in an interview, adding that he had discussed the matter with Iranian officials. “They all confirm that if, God forbid, someone attacks Syunik, we will fight alongside you.”

Mayor Andreasyan said his town’s engagement with Iran had flourished since 2022, when Tehran opened a consulate in the regional capital, Kapan — where Russia is now working to do the same.

Mr. Sobhani declined to say what Iran would do if Azerbaijan attacked, responding: “It will not happen.”

Azerbaijan says it wants peace. It has also sought to contain tensions with Iran, which flared after an attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran last year.

President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s leader, said last week, “We have achieved what we wanted,” adding, “Islamophobes and Azerbaijanophobes in certain Western capitals are inciting Armenia to start a new war.”

Military equipment on display at a park overlooking Yerevan.

Kapan, the regional capital of Syunik, has seen Iran and Russia jockey for influence. Tehran opened a consulate in the city in 2022, and Moscow is working to do the same.

The Biden administration has pushed Azerbaijan and Armenia to hold peace talks. Some current and former Armenian officials said there had been progress recently, but that Mr. Trump was a wild card. They fear a combination of less American attention and a harder line on Iran, which they see as playing a constructive role in the Caucasus.

Areg Kochinyan, an Armenian former security official who runs a think tank in Yerevan, said, “The bad guys in other regions may all of a sudden not be that bad in this region.” He added that the waning of U.S. attention and pressure on Iran “creates a possibility that there will be a vacuum of stabilizing force in the region.”

European countries have their own balancing act. E.U. leaders have been deepening ties with Azerbaijan, despite human rights concerns, because the oil- and gas-rich country provides alternatives to Russian energy. They also recognize the country’s importance to Israel, which gets much of its oil from Azerbaijan, sells weapons to Azerbaijan, and sees strategic value in having close ties with a neighbor of Iran.

Mr. Ritter, the E.U. mission chief, said that both Armenia and Azerbaijan were building bunkers, trenches and artillery positions “to prepare for the worst case.”

Midway along Armenia’s narrow border with Iran, with Azerbaijan roughly 10 miles away, is the abandoned Soviet-era station of Meghri, where rusting train cars stand in the weeds, frozen in time. The line is a symbol of a once interconnected Caucasus under Soviet rule and a reminder of the regional pivot point that the area still represents.

Rima Galstyan, 79, who lives nearby, said that she feared an Azerbaijani invasion. She said that Iran had protected the area in the past, while acknowledging, “We used to love the Russians so, so much.” But things have changed.

“I don’t trust anyone now,” she said.

Rima Galstyan, 79, by the abandoned train station at Meghri, near her house, not far from the border with Iran. The rail line through southern Armenia is a symbol of a once interconnected Caucasus under Soviet rule.

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More about Anton Troianovski