If anyone thinks it strange that Vladimir Putin should have visited Azerbaijan this week, while an enemy army is advancing on Russian soil, the answer is that it suited his narrative perfectly to go to the Azeri capital of Baku, for that very reason. Although the visit was arranged in advance, Putin will have regarded it as fortuitous.
It enabled him to appear insouciant about Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, to dismiss it as a fleabite that he trusts his army to neutralise; to assert that it is business as usual by having the Russian media show him visiting a foreign head of state, in a country where the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court is not recognised; and to demonstrate to his host and the other nations of the South Caucasus that he is energetically pursuing Russian geopolitical and commercial interests in the region.
