Azerbaijan has become an important point of discussion in Armenia’s pivotal June 7 parliamentary election. But what does Azerbaijan actually want from this vote? An unusual consensus is emerging in Azerbaijan: many here want to see Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan survive the election.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. This is not because Azerbaijanis have suddenly developed affection for the leader they fought a bloody war against, nor because they have forgotten his past nationalist rhetoric. It is certainly not because Baku views him as a friend. Rather, Pashinyan, for all his contradictions, is seen as the first Armenian leader willing to resist Russia’s manipulation and permanently close the chapter of war. Breaking Moscow’s divide-and-rule cycle For decades, the Kremlin’s playbook in the South Caucasus was simple: use Armenia against Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan against Armenia. In the 1990s, Moscow used Yerevan against Baku, a strategy that ultimately cost Azerbaijan 20 percent of its territory and triggered the collapse of Abulfaz Elchibey’s democratically elected government. Since 2020, the Kremlin appears to have attempted the reverse: using Azerbaijan to weaken Pashinyan and pull Armenia firmly back into its orbit. But this time, the plan is not working. The recent absence of border provocations or ceasefire violations suggests that Baku is refusing to give Moscow this leverage. No major political gifts Baku certainly understands the trap. Although President Ilham Aliyev skipped the Yerevan-hosted European Political Community summit, and Baku has neither released the 19 Armenian detainees nor signed a formal peace treaty before the election, its strategic restraint speaks volumes.