The EconomistNovember 14th 2020 Europe 472 dent Donald Trump. So the autocratic lead-
ers of Russia and Turkey were left alone to
hammer out their deal. Under it, Armenia
is to withdraw from the remaining districts
around Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia will de-
ploy a 2,000-strong peacekeeping force in
Nagorno-Karabakh, for the next five and
possibly ten years. There was no mention
of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, which
in the past had been promised autonomy
within Azerbaijan. Tens of thousands of
ethnic Armenians fled their homes in Ste-
panakert during the fighting as Azerbai-
jan’s army closed in.
Within hours of the announcement,
Russia moved in its troops, establishing its
long-craved presence in the Lachin corri-
dor linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mr Aliyev had for years resisted this. Hav-
ing closely observed the use of Russian
peacekeepers in the war unleashed by Mos-
cow against neighbouring Georgia in 2008,
he had no desire to see Russian troops in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Yet he had little
choice. Going any further in the war risked
a direct confrontation with Russian forces.
Turkey probably helped persuade Azer-
baijan to accept the deal. Though not men-
tioned in the trilateral agreement signed
between the two belligerents and Russia,
Turkey is a big beneficiary of it. It is to get
access to a transport corridor through Ar-
menian territory from the Azerbaijani en-
clave of Nakhchivan, which borders Tur-
key, to the main bit of Azerbaijan and the
Caspian Sea, thus linking Turkey to Central
Asia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Russia will control the road itself, but
Turkish and Chinese goods will travel
along it, and all parties stand to benefit eco-
nomically. “This trade route could trans-
form the entire region and become the
main staple of a peace settlement,” says Mi-
kayil Jabbarov, Azerbaijan’s American-edu-
cated economy minister. Perhaps it is the
prospect of this geopolitical transforma-
tion that has enticed Mike Pompeo, the
American secretary of state, to visit the re-
gion in the next few days. After four years
of Mr Trump’s presidential neglect, he is
very late to the party, and there are many
pitfalls ahead. 7
ShushaYerevanTbilisiBaku
TURKEYIRANARMENIAAZER.AZERBAIJANGEORGIARUSSIANagorno-KarabakhCaspian
SeaLachinStepanakert
NakhchivanAreas of control
November 10th 2020Source:Polgeonow.comNagorno-Karabakh
Armenianforces
Azerbaijaniforces
Unclear100 kmI
n 2014 ukrainians got so fed up with the
grotesque corruption of their political
class that they staged a revolution. Since
then, reformers have been trying to build
institutions to hold the country’s oligarchs
and crooked politicians to account. One big
victory was establishing an electronic as-
set-declaration system, an online registry
where officials must list all of their main
possessions. But on October 27th Ukraine’s
constitutional court found a clever way to
cripple this system: it struck down the
anti-corruption authorities’ power to pun-
ish anyone for lying on it.
Piquantly, four of the court’s 18 justices
were being investigated by those same au-
thorities. After the ruling, Schemes, an in-
vestigative news outfit, reported that the
chief judge had failed to declare property
he owns in Russian-occupied Crimea, ac-
quired under Russian law, which would
imply recognising Russian sovereignty. In
his defence, he said he did not know how to
file an e-declaration for land in Crimea.
It has been 18 months since Volodymyr
Zelensky went from playing Ukraine’s
president on television to being elected
president in real life. He now faces a test of
his pledge to clean up the country. Bit by
bit, the country’s top court is dismantling
the anti-corruption infrastructure. In Au-
gust it partially struck down the National
Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (nabu)
and ruled that its head had been appointed
illegally. The new ruling strips the National
Agency on Corruption Prevention (nacp)
of much of its power.
Fighting graft is not just a domestic con-cern. Ukraine’s economic stability is bol-
stered by a $5bn loan secured in June from
the imf. It stands to get another €1.2bn
($1.4bn) in economic and covid-19 aid from
the eu(as well as continuing to enjoy visa-
free travel in it). Both organisations make
their assistance conditional on fighting
corruption. On November 3rd the eu
warned that both aid and visa-free travel
could be jeopardised. It says it will first
wait to see whether Ukraine restores power
to the anti-corruption bodies.
Reformers are divided over how to do
this. Mr Zelensky, trying to rally popular
support after his party did badly in munici-
pal elections last month, has urgently de-
manded that parliament pass legislation
firing all of the constitutional court’s
judges. It is not clear that he has the votes.
Even if he does, legal experts say the move
would itself be unconstitutional. Another
proposal is to pass new laws re-establish-
ing the anti-corruption agencies on firmer
ground. But activists, who suspect the
court of being corrupt and compromised
by pro-Russian interests, fear it will find an
excuse to strike down those new laws too.
In the short term the court has been slowed
by four liberal judges who are refusing to
attend, denying it a quorum. Some propose
raising the quorum requirement, making it
easy for a few reformers to block action.
Those who dislike the clean-up efforts
may next attack laws that have let dodgy
banks (owned by oligarchs) be national-
ised, and a new law opening up the land
market. The Anti-corruption Action Centre
(antac), the country’s premier watchdog,
says such legal challenges are a stubborn
effort to re-establish the sort of klepto-
cratic order that existed under Viktor Yanu-
kovych, a disgraced ex-president, and to
sabotage Ukraine’s turn towards the West.
The constitutional court is “the most pro-
tected organ in the country,” says Olena
Shcherban, Antac’s chief legal expert. If Mr
Zelensky wants to salvage his presidency,
he will have to take it on. 7KYIV
Ukraine’s constitutional court attacks
anti-corruption lawsUkraineJudge not, that ye
be not judged