In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service on 10 August, RSC Director Richard Giragosian assessed the new level of Russian military cooperation with Azerbaijan. He highlighted the fact that the Kremlin has been making the transition to a new level of military-technical cooperation between Azerbaijan and simple sale of arms. “This new development shows that the issue is no longer of Russia being the number one supplier of arms to Azerbaijan, rather, we are dealing with a more serious problem than the supply of arms. Now the danger and threats are greater because we are dealing with a new level of Russia-Azerbaijan military cooperation,” Giragosian stated.

In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), RSC staff analyst Haykak Arshamyan assessed the broader significance of the ongoing hostage standoff in Armenia. Commenting on the “Founding Parliament” of Jirair Sefilyan, which the gunmen are affiliated with, Arshamyan noted that “they refuse [to participate in] the election process as it is today in Armenia due to violence and non-transparency in the system. And their program is that this government should resign and we should have a transition government and new elections," says Haykak Arshamyan, a political analyst at the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan. "Their ideas are a bit complicated and unclear."

Participating in a two-day conference jointly organized by the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Tbilisi on 28-29 June, RSC Director Richard Giragosian presented an analysis entitled, “The Outlook for the Region in the Next 5-10 Years: Key Challenges, Dangers, and Opportunities.”

RSC Director Richard Giragosian participated in a regional conference in Tbilisi on 9 June entitled, “Energy Security – Old and New Geopolitical Paradigm,” organized by the Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC) and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. In his presentation, Giragosian assessed the broader geopolitics of energy in the Black, Caspian and Mediterranean Sea regions, as well as the Persian Gulf. The conference was also attended by Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili and the Minister of Energy, Kakha Kaladze.

RSC Director Richard Giragosian briefed the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, on 12 April, on the current situation in the wake of the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. The RSC also presented a more detailed three-page report, entitled “The South Caucasus: Regional Challenges and Concerns,” for the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA) that included five key “lessons learned” from the recent resumption of hostilities over Karabakh as well a set of six policy several recommendations for the United Nations.