Is Putin’s war spreading?

‘This is our land,’ Anna says, looking out over her roadside flower shop. ‘Lenin promised it to us.’ Her father was born across the mountains in Russia, one of around 100,000 displaced Armenians only able to return home after world war two. ‘But thanks to Lenin, we have our own country. A free country – at least for now.’

As the fighting in Ukraine stretches into its first month, another conflict between two former Soviet states might not be far away. Last year, a brief but bloody war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been autonomously governed by ethnic Armenians over the past three decades. Backed by fearsome drones and heavy weaponry from their Turkish allies, the Azerbaijani forces made rapid gains. Many in the tiny Caucasus nation of Armenia feared the whole country could soon be overrun.

Despite being one of the few genuine democracies to emerge from the fall of the USSR, Armenia received little support from the West: only Russia was willing to back up its southern neighbour.