Some takeaways from the latest war in Nagorno-Karabakh:
1) The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is now officially re-frozen in a way that resembles closely the Madrid Principles, considered by everyone a rather fair compromise. BUT:

2) Azeri (and Turkish) military force, not diplomats delivered progress towards that ‘compromise’. the other key difference - no more talk of NK status. Its like Madrid but without NK status talk and without the diplomats in the room

3) NK will resemble much more Abkhazia and South Ossetia before 2008. No status talk. Russian peacekeepers. NK security is now co-guaranteed by Russia, but AM lost its own capacity to defend NK should it want/need to.

4) Azerbaijan seems victorious but the picture is more mixed. Baku traded the re-acquisition of territories in exchange for Russian peacekeepers, thus greater RU security and military leverage. Moldova (Kozak memo) and Georgia refused somewhat similar trade-offs before.

5) Expect a short term RU-AZ honeymoon. But possible future tensions and acrimony later. Georgia’s has been through that in the second half of the 90s.

6) Armenia – the country gets to retain de facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh. RU peacekeepers make Armenia less vulnerable to future conflagrations. But Armenia has much less trust in Russia as an ally, and much higher level of dependence on RU.

7) The real winners are Turkey and Russia. Moscow tightened the screws of its control of Armenia – in domestic and foreign policies. And Turkey got a much better share of influence in the South Caucasus + publicity and prestige for its military, alliance commitments drones

8) as @tom_nuttall also points the trend of growing militarization of foreign policies in Europe’s neighbourhood continues unabated. this also makes EU less and less rrelevant since its economic and political power cannot do much about countries bent on fighting

9) One possible way to gradually regain EU relevance (without sending militaries and inserting itself in every military imbroglio), is to start developing security partnerships with selected neighbours. here is how https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-best-defence-why-the-eu-should-forge-security-compacts-with-its-eastern-neighbours/ @GresselGustav