The peacekeepers, whom Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had criticised for not intervening to stop Azerbaijani forces in Karabakh, had originally been due to stay until 2025.

Russian peacekeepers have begun withdrawing from Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions, ending a multi-year deployment that gave Moscow a military foothold in the strategic South Caucasus region.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in a conference call with journalists on Wednesday, confirmed reports of the withdrawal but did not give further details. No timeframe was given for the withdrawal.

Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, also confirmed the withdrawal, saying it was agreed to by both countries. He did not say why the forces were being withdrawn, but their presence appeared superfluous after Azerbaijan regained full control of the region last year.

Nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeeping soldiers were deployed to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020 under a Moscow-brokered deal that halted six weeks of fighting between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces. The Russian forces’ duties were to include ensuring free passage on the sole road connecting Karabakh with Armenia.

But Azerbaijan began blocking the road in late 2022, alleging Armenians were using it for weapons shipments and to smuggle minerals, and the Russian forces did not intervene.

After months of increasingly dire food and medicine shortages in Karabakh due to the blockade, Azerbaijan launched a lighting blitz in September 2023 that saw the country retake the region. That triggered an exodus of 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the region and the arrest of the breakaway area’s ethnic Armenian leaders.

Armenia’s political leadership accused Russia at the time of failing to protect Armenian interests, a charge Russia rejected. The peacekeepers had originally been due to stay until November 2025.

The Azerbaijani news agency APA reported late Tuesday that Russian peacekeepers had begun withdrawing and that the first personnel and equipment had left from a monastery revered by Armenians in Azerbaijan’s Kalbajar district a few days ago.

Hajiyev was cited by the state news agency Azertac as confirming a withdrawal agreement had been struck.

“The early withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers, temporarily stationed in the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan in accordance with the trilateral statement signed on November 10, 2020, has been decided by the leaders of both countries,” it quoted the Azerbaijani adviser as saying.

“The process has already begun with the ministries of defence of Azerbaijan and Russia implementing appropriate measures for the execution of that decision.”

The former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have long fought over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has a mostly Christian Armenian population but whose 4,500sq km (1,750sq miles) of territory lies within predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan. It is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.