Politico: Armenians were the first to realize that cozying up to Russia had been waste of time 

With his lightning raid to snatch Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, US President Donald Trump has shown that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s self-proclaimed “multipolar” world of anti-Western dictatorial alliances from Caracas to Tehran is essentially toothless, writes Politico.

“Beyond the humiliation of the world seeing that Putin isn’t a dependable ally when the chips are down — something already witnessed in Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria and Iran — there’s now also the added insult that Trump appears more effective and bolder in pulling off the sort of maverick superpower interventions the Kremlin wishes it could achieve.

After the war in Ukraine broke out in 2022, Moscow called upon its allies to rally to its side. They largely heeded the call. Iran sold Russia drones. China and India bought its oil. The leaders of those countries in Latin America and Africa, with less to offer economically and militarily, gave symbolic support that lent credence to Moscow’s claim it wasn’t an international pariah and in fact had plenty of friends.

Recent events, however, have shown those to be a one-way friendships to the benefit of Moscow.

The first to realise that cozying up to Russia had been a waste of time were the Armenians. Distracted by the Ukraine war, Moscow didn’t lift a finger to stop Azerbaijan from seizing the ethnic-Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning war in 2023. Russian peacekeepers just stood by,” adds Politico.