Russia’s southern periphery is closer to open war than at any time since the 1990s. Hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia are mounting 21 years after a cease-fire froze a conflict that flared in the dying days of the Soviet Union. During the relative calm, companies including BP Plc poured billions of dollars into producing oil and gas in Azerbaijan and building pipelines to link the country with southern Italy. The upswing in violence now threatens to put some of those investments at risk and destabilize a region that separates Russia from Turkey and Iran. A May 3 election looming in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region Armenians took over in the war more than two decades ago, may trigger a wider confrontation, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said. The vote “could further escalate the tensions, increasing the risks […]