Caucasus
Coverage across the South Caucasus — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Washington's Iranian-airline sweep lands in Kazakhstan as a ticket agent and in Tbilisi as 6 airlines
The US Treasury's designation of 27 Iranian airlines and their foreign enablers on Tuesday named one Central Asian company, Tour Invest of Kazakhstan, as Mahan Air's general sales agent. On Thursday Georgia's Civil Aviation Agency said 6 of the newly listed carriers fly between Georgia and Iran and that Tbilisi will act in full compliance with the sanctions regime. Astana had said nothing the desk found by evening.
The Black Sea drone war reaches Baku through the crew of a Turkish salvage tug
Two Azerbaijani sailors died on Wednesday when drones hit the tug Tedy twice off Odesa during a salvage operation for an Istanbul company, on a passage the Turkish trade press reports as bound for Constanța. On Thursday Russia's defence ministry reported a strike on “a tug escorting” two cargo ships bound for Odesa, Baku named its dead and told its citizens to keep away from war zones, and Ankara, which proposed a shipping-security mechanism 8 days ago, had added nothing to it by evening. The cost of the middle position in this war has moved from hulls to crews.
Baku moves the start of work on the Trump route to 2027, 6 days before Armenia's court takes up the deal
Physical work on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, the road and rail link across Armenia's south between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan agreed in Washington in August 2025, will begin in 2027 instead of before the end of this year, Azerbaijan's foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov told journalists on Wednesday, “according to the latest information”. Ilham Aliyev had put the start at the end of this year or the start of next; Nikol Pashinyan had wanted it in 2026. Armenia's Constitutional Court examines the agreement on 15 September.
Brent clears $100 for the first time since July, with Azeri Light at $108 against the $65 in Baku's budget
Azeri Light printed $108.18 a barrel CIF Augusta in Trend's Wednesday-morning table, 66% above the $65 average written into Azerbaijan's 2026 budget. By 10:25 Moscow time the November Brent contract had passed $100 for the first time since 24 July, Interfax reported. Kazakhstan's budget law runs on $60, and its tenge lost 2.5 tenge against the dollar on the same day.
Yerevan lodges a complaint against Russia's produce bans through the EAEU as Pashinyan leaves for Paris
Armenia has filed a complaint against the restrictions Russia has kept on Armenian goods since May, deputy economy minister Tigran Gasparyan told a briefing on Tuesday, and expects them lifted “with the help of the mechanisms that operate within the EAEU”. On Wednesday morning Armenpress reported the prime minister leaving for a working visit to Paris. The Moscow visit the Kremlin announced on Monday has drawn no word from Yerevan's channels that the desk could find.
Georgia promises to double its ports by 2032 for a corridor whose shallowest link is on the other sea
Georgia's sea ports and terminals handled 13.7 million tonnes in the first 8 months of 2026, 24% more than a year earlier and the best figure in ten years, the economy minister told the Georgia International Maritime Forum in Batumi. The prime minister, at the same opening, set a ten-year target: railway capacity doubled, port capacity doubled, airport capacity tripled, about $7 billion by 2032. The desk's own reading of the route puts its narrowest section across Azerbaijan and the Caspian, at a Kazakh quay whose fenders are broken and whose water is falling, and there the only dated commitment is a dredging contract.
The Kremlin books Pashinyan for Moscow, and puts the referendum he dropped back on the agenda
Vladimir Putin invited Nikol Pashinyan to Moscow and Pashinyan accepted, Dmitry Peskov said on Monday; the two leaders, in his words, will discuss "the choice of the direction of development, Armenia's orientation" and "the holding of the corresponding referendum". A week earlier in Bishkek the Armenian prime minister had taken that referendum off his table. Moscow has now put it on its own, with no date attached.
Armenia sends the Catholicos back to Armavir, where he is charged with defying one court order
The Court of Cassation has ruled that the criminal case against Garegin II and six bishops belongs to the court of first instance of Armavir province, because the acts charged were committed at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenpress reported at 19:45 on Monday. The charge is a single article: part 2 of article 507 of the criminal code, obstructing the enforcement of a judicial act in force through the use of official powers. Behind it stands one bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, whom the Catholicos defrocked in January while a court order kept him in his post.
OPEC+'s seven hold October at September's level while Brent opens the week at $97
Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman decided on Sunday to keep their October required production at the September level, with Kazakhstan's line at 1.628 million barrels a day. Brent's November contract traded at $97.28 at 08:15 Moscow time on Monday, up $1 on the day, and the tenge closed at 454.31 to the dollar, 2.04 stronger than on Friday.
Baku's fuel for Armenia passes 21,000 tonnes as Saturday's 16 wagons leave Balajary
On Saturday 16 tank wagons carrying 977 tonnes of diesel left Balajary station for Boyuk Kasik, the Georgian border, and Armenia beyond it, APA reported. With them the running total of Azerbaijani fuel sent to Armenia stands at about 16,000 tonnes of diesel and about 5,000 tonnes of AI-92 and AI-95 petrol, by the agency's count. The same border crossing took Russian cargo in transit the same day: 355 tonnes of wheat, 180 tonnes of fertiliser and 138 tonnes of timber.
The pardoned Russian left Georgia for Yerevan the same evening the court gave him 7 days
Denis Kulanin flew out of Tbilisi on Friday evening and landed at Zvartnots, 8 days after President Mikheil Kavelashvili's pardon and hours after Tbilisi City Court granted the migration department's expulsion motion in a form that let him pick the country. The exit closes a thread that ran from a pardon through a dry hunger strike and a migration-centre cell to a courtroom, and it closes in Armenia, the destination on the ticket that expired while he sat in the centre on 1 September.
A Tbilisi court gives the pardoned Russian 7 days to leave Georgia for a country of his choosing
Tbilisi City Court has granted the migration department's motion on Denis Kulanin in full, and the motion carried its own exit: seven days to leave voluntarily, to any country he picks, with a handover to Russia off the table, as Sova and Meduza read the ruling. The order had not reached the migration service by Friday afternoon, his lawyer said, and he stays in its temporary placement centre until it does.
Tbilisi's file on a dead Abkhaz activist holds three detainees and two theories
Daur Buava, 30, who left Tkvarcheli for Tbilisi in 2021 and made TikTok videos about Abkhazia joining Georgia, was found dead in a rented flat in Didi Digomi on 27 August. A week on, the Interior Ministry's file holds three detainees and two articles of the criminal code, the drugs version the ministry gave on 29 August is disputed by his lawyer, and Wednesday's protest in Tbilisi carried the line «Daur was killed».
Azeri Light clears $97, half again the oil price written into Baku's budget
Azerbaijan's export blend was priced at $97.61 a barrel on Wednesday morning, up $4.72 or 5.08% on the day, APA reported; the 2026 state budget was drawn at $65.
Baku's fuel for Armenia nears 20,000 tonnes, and every wagon still goes through Georgia
Another 17 tank wagons of Azerbaijani diesel leave Baku's Bilajari yard for the Georgian border today. The running total the Baku press prints, near 15,000 tonnes of diesel and 5,000 of petrol, is small against Armenia's import book and large as a fact: the peace dividend is counted in wagons, and its only track runs through a third country.
Khachatryan gets 2 months in the jail that already holds Kocharyan
A Yerevan court ordered Gagik Khachatryan, the former finance minister and tax chief, held for 2 months, Sputnik Armenia and Kommersant reported on Wednesday morning. He goes to the Yerevan-Kentron detention centre, where Robert Kocharyan has been since last week, and the Human Rights Defender has opened an inquiry over a video of him that circulated online.
Tbilisi asks a court to send its pardoned Russian back to Russia
The Migration Department filed a petition with Tbilisi City Court on Tuesday to expel Denis Kulanin to Russia, 2 days after the same court allowed him to leave for a third country. He is still in the migration centre with a ticket to Yerevan he cannot use.
Armenia's former tax chief is carried into court on a stretcher
Gagik Khachatryan, who ran the State Revenue Committee and then the finance ministry under Serzh Sargsyan, was taken from his home by Investigative Committee officers on Tuesday and delivered to court lying down. The detention is the milestone the new case opened on 29 August had been pointing to.
Pashinyan drops the referendum, and Putin offers to leave Gyumri
Four days after Lavrov told Armenia to choose between the EU and the EAEU by referendum, Pashinyan told Putin in Bishkek there will be no referendum and no membership decision yet. Putin answered at his press conference in Bishkek that the Gyumri base stays only if Armenians want it, and invited Pashinyan to Moscow to go through the file point by point. The ultimatum has become a negotiation with a venue.