On February 2, the Head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Sergey Lavrov, told in an interview with Russia 24 and RIA News that Azerbaijan has regained its territories that had been occupied by Armenia for years. 

Lavrov mentioned that the request to deploy a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) mission to the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan arrived in September 2022, when there was an “outburst of violence resulting in the death of around 300 people.” The plan was not implemented, however, as the Armenian side demanded that the document “condemned Azerbaijan’s actions categorically”, which the CSTO members were not ready to do. According to Lavrov, Russia had been attempting to resolve the issue politically for a long time, but Armenia was unwilling to give up the territories it had occupied around Nagorno-Karabakh. He noted that “Azerbaijan has regained the lands which belonged to them.” 

Furthermore, Lavrov implied that Moscow is struggling to decide what to do next, as Yerevan and Baku, with the European Union’s mediation, agreed to a document on the readiness to sign a peace treaty in accordance with the Almaty Declaration of 1991. According to the Declaration, the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan would follow the administrative boundaries of the Soviet Union and its republics, including the Armenian and Azerbaijani SSRs (with the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within it).

This statement by Sergey Lavrov was criticized by the Armenian media and politicians, as it was considered "pro-Azerbaijani" in Yerevan.