NATO is sharpening its focus on the South Caucasus as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to reshape the region’s security environment. The alliance is deepening partnerships with Armenia and Azerbaijan while maintaining its long-standing cooperation with Georgia, aiming to strengthen resilience against military pressure, hybrid threats, and destabilizing influence in a geopolitically sensitive region.
In this interview with Independence Avenue Media, Krisztián Mészáros, NATO’s director for partnerships and global affairs, offers an inside look at how the alliance assesses and responds to security challenges posed by Russia across the Caucasus. He discusses NATO’s evolving partnership frameworks with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, the lessons drawn from Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and how the alliance works with partners to counter disinformation, interference, and other non-conventional threats while respecting national sovereignty and choice.
The following interview was conducted on February 3 and has been edited for length and clarity.
Ia Meurmishvili, IAM editor in chief: Let’s start with NATO Deputy Secretary-General Radmila Shekerinska’s recent visits to Armenia and Azerbaijan. What are the biggest takeaways that you can tell us about?
Krisztian Meszaros, NATO director for partnerships and global affairs: Her visit to the region is a signal of the importance of the South Caucasus for NATO and its allies. With all the geopolitical turbulence and developments, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, obviously this region and the security and the stability of the region is very, very important for all allies. Her visit is a signal of that.
She visited both countries recently in December and in January. The main takeaway is that our partnership, which has long standing over three decades now, is as important as ever and as strong as ever. As part of that partnership, we do political dialogue and practical cooperation.
She was now spearheading the dialogue part, the consultation, and met with the leadership of both countries and passed a message of, again, the importance of talking to each other, working together.
A message of the importance of our partnership, a message of the importance of the stability, security of Armenia and Azerbaijan for the alliance and a message of partnership is what she delivered there.
IAM: And 2026 seems to be an important year for the region and the partnerships when we’re looking at the new framework for the NATO-Armenia and NATO-Azerbaijan partnerships. What do these entail?
Meszaros: When it comes to the framework of our partnerships, well, as I just said, it’s been in place for quite a long time. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of the Partnership for Peace, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership, and as such have contributed to Euro-Atlantic security already. So, the partnership frameworks are in place.
What we’re working on now is a specific tool. So, for each of our partners, we have something called the individually tailored partnership program. And this is basically a document that brings together the strategic objectives and goals that NATO and the partnering question we want to do together. So, it’s important, lofty political goals and also very practical things that we will do together, from exercises to language courses and so on. So, we’re working and finalizing these documents with both countries, hopefully soon. And then we have this practical individual document for each partner.
But there’s so much that we’re doing together. We just talked about the visit of the deputy secretary-general there. A group of NATO ambassadors visited both Yerevan and Baku last year. We have the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which has hosted a seminar in Armenia and is planning to host one later in Azerbaijan.
Furthermore, we do a lot on the practical side together. Both countries participate in different exercises, and we do training courses together. So, there’s a lot already happening. I don’t want to give the impression that we’re expecting something to start. A lot has been done in the past decades, and it can only grow stronger with these new documents.
IAM: I feel that Georgia is missing in this conversation. Georgia has been an aspirant country for almost two decades. So why is Georgia missing in the conversation between us today?
Meszaros: You have not asked me about Georgia yet… Indeed, Georgia is the third important partner for NATO. And as you yourself pointed out, it’s one of the aspirants for NATO membership. That aspiration is not something that comes from NATO. Of course, as in all countries, that’s something that comes from the people of Georgia. And you know that there is a clear support for Euro-Atlantic and European integration. Furthermore, it’s laid down in the Constitution of Georgia.
That’s our guiding principle. Georgia is a partner. We have a liaison office that’s helping to move forward our relationship, our practical cooperation in Tbilisi. We have the substantial NATO-Georgia package, which has been in place for over a decade now, whereby NATO experts provide specific support to the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces of Georgia on various areas on defense reforms and military reforms. So, the cooperation is ongoing. And then we look at Georgia and the government of Georgia to live up to the demands of the people of Georgia and also to the constitution.
IAM: Let’s go back to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia’s shift away from Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is a major geopolitical shift in the region. How is NATO addressing that? Is Armenia getting any additional assistance in this process, whether from the partnership or another type of NATO support?
Meszaros: Thank you. This gives me an opportunity to clarify a bit how NATO partnerships work. Because in fact, we call it “demand driven.” So, it’s the partner who comes to NATO wanting a partnership relationship and support, if that is the case.
In other words, it’s never NATO that’s in the business of finding partners — nor members, by the way, despite what you hear from Russian propaganda and disinformation. NATO is not expanding. It’s not hunting for members or partners. I myself come from a country that joined in 1999, Hungary. And I can tell you that back in the ’90s, NATO was not asking Hungary to join. On the contrary, it was Hungary pushing to join NATO.
But back to Armenia, NATO respects the choices of all countries and all nations. So, Armenia, as member of CSTO, had a perfectly good and well-developed partnership with NATO. That was never an obstacle to developing the partnership. Hence, the shifts and changes in Armenian foreign policy are something that NATO and NATO allies fully respect. We do not judge that, and we are eager to do more.
If Armenia so chooses, and it happens to be the case that through our partnership and through this individually tailored partnership program, we can look at further opportunities where we can support defense reforms, modernization of the armed forces, moving to a more Western-styled military from the Soviet inadequate ways of working. So full respect to any choice that Armenia makes. It’s not something we ask for, but we are open to do more and do as much as the partner wishes to do as long as it also meets the alliance’s interest, of course.
IAM: So, is there any risk when it comes to the speed of Armenia’s partnership development with NATO? Is there a risk in doing it faster — or slower?
Meszaros: I do not really see a risk for NATO as such unless we are unable to fulfill a promise we make. So, on our side, we have to make sure that if we agree to do something with a partner, especially if it’s in the area of support — defense capacity support, for example — that we’re able to resource it, and we’re able to deliver on that. But if you’re alluding to political risk, no. The strength of the alliance is that everything we do we decide by consensus. So, if we agree among 32 allies to work more with Armenia, then all allies agree, and then there is no risk from our side.
IAM: Azerbaijan is maintaining good relations with Russia on the economic level and somewhat on the political level. How does NATO navigate that, or do you navigate that at all?
Meszaros: Again, I don’t feel we need to navigate Azerbaijan’s relationship with Russia. It has never been an obstacle for our partnership, and it continues to be something that we respect and accept.
We work very closely with Azerbaijan on many issues, not least on energy security. It’s a very important provider of energy to European countries, especially as we’re moving away from Russian sources. We are working in many different areas with Azerbaijan, from scientific cooperation to exercises, education, and training. And of course, we don’t forget the important support Azerbaijan provided to our operations and missions in Afghanistan, being the last ones [of non-NATO countries] at the Kabul airport in 2021. The bravery of the Azerbaijani military there has not been forgotten.
IAM: When we talk about this region, we of course talk about Russian influence, whether through political or economic means, energy exports, or hybrid operations. How does NATO help Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia push back on hybrid operations, disinformation, and so forth?
Meszaros: All three partners in this region have experience, as do allies, with Russian hybrid operations. Our secretary-general doesn’t like the word “hybrid,” because in his view, it doesn’t really cover what we’re talking about, which is sabotage, assassinations, even interference in elections. So very, very serious issues. And if we just call them “hybrid,” it may sound like something fluffy and nice. No, these are really serious actions by Russia, which serve to undermine democracies and interfere in democratic decision-making. And of course, in many cases, stopping the support we are providing to Ukraine.
I think what you’ve witnessed in allies and in some partner countries as well, that on the contrary, these actions will just firm up the support that we are providing to Ukraine and hopefully will strengthen our democracies as well. That’s why we’re looking at strengthening our resilience. And that’s something where we can work with partners and share information and experience with experiencing such hybrid attacks from Russia.
And of course there’s an important election coming up in Armenia, and we follow very closely the developments there and expect Russian meddling, as is unfortunately customary in democratic processes.
IAM: You mentioned Ukraine very briefly. Is there anything that NATO has learned in Ukraine as it comes to the Russian operations and is NATO helping its partners in the Caucasus apply these lessons to their systems?
Meszaros: Ukraine, sadly, has a lot of lessons from the battlefield and also from Russian interference that we all can learn from. There are a couple of ways that we are working on these lessons learned and trying to implement them and also keep in mind for allies as well. We have established a joint NATO-Ukraine training and education center in Poland — in Bydgoszcz — that collects these lessons learned and applies them. And then we have the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre, which is in Portugal. That’s a NATO command where we also collect the lessons learned. But definitely, definitely we need to heed the bitter lessons that Ukraine is learning through this savage war of Russia.
One important lesson, I think, is that the Russian military was not as capable, of course, as we all thought. And that’s important to keep in mind.
IAM: Let’s talk about America very briefly. 5% — is it coming from threats from Russia or is it to entice and engage the U.S. in the Alliance?
Meszaros: The Hague summit indeed made a historic decision on defense spending. And you mentioned the 5% benchmark, which is, of course, 3.5% of core defense spending and 1.5% of defense-related spending — think about infrastructure, cyberdefenses, and so on. And this was indeed historic. And I think President Trump and the Trump administration deserve credit for bringing this to NATO and for forcing through the importance of burden sharing and for all of us to spend more on defense. Because this is not just a number coming out of the blue. This is something that’s defined by threats.
I’ll go back to the strategic concept in 2022 that outlined two key threats for NATO — of course, Russia as the most immediate threat, but also terrorism. And then we have defense plans in place to defend against these threats. And these defense plans come with concrete capabilities and demands on our armed forces to meet, to deter these threats and defend against them.
President Trump and the Trump administration have been very vocal and very clear about the importance of burden sharing — for European allies and Canada to carry more of the burden. And I think you’ve seen that already happening since the Hague summit. As I said, we’re at the halfway point, and come the Ankara summit in July, we will look at how allies are meeting this commitment that they made in the Hague summit. So, 5%. It’s a concrete number. It’s driven by our threats and our needs to meet those threats. That’s something that has brought the alliance together. As you said, it was a decision made together at 32 and will only make the alliance stronger.
IAM: What happens in July if not all NATO members are doing enough to get to the 5%? What happens then? Is there still concern that the U.S. might back away from NATO?
Meszaros: First of all, we don’t deal with speculation, and we are very optimistic that everybody will meet the commitments that they have made simply because we see the threats that are in front of us. Then I will say that President Trump and the Trump administration, Secretary [Marco] Rubio, and others have made several times clear their ironclad commitment to NATO, to Article 5.
You need just look at the U.S. troop presence in Europe and the concrete commitments to European security. This is not something that’s a worry. NATO is just becoming stronger with the 5% spending target. I’m very optimistic that all allies are working towards that.
IAM: Are you optimistic that the door will stay open in light of the threats and challenges we face?
Meszaros: We’ve always said that NATO’s open-door policy has been a historic success. And again, just look at the region and look at those allies that joined after 1999 and the contributions they bring to this alliance.
The open-door policy is not something we can change. It’s written in the Washington Treaty, Article 10. So, it’s not a question whether it’s valid or not. And then let’s see whether those countries that aspire to join the alliance can be ready to make the necessary reforms and when allies are ready to make decisions on enlargement. But the open door is there, and it’s a historic success. So again, another reason to be optimistic about the future.
See more:
- Inside NATO’s Approach to the South Caucasus
- Amb. Juri Luik Warns a Weak Peace in Ukraine Would Undermine NATO
- New START Is Dead. The Man Who Ran U.S. Nuclear Policy for 15 Years Says That’s a Good Thing
- Ukraine Is the Tip of the Spear: Matt Pottinger on Deterrence, US-China Relations, and What Comes Next
