Forecast: Any escalation at the contact line and Armenian-Azerbaijani  border will strike not only CSTO but Russia also. 

ArmInfo. Moscow's growing role in  Nagorno Karabakh Settlement means also a new level  of its responsibility, putting new tasks in front of Russia, Sergey  Markedonov, Russian political expert states his opinion. 

 "In this respect, any escalation at the contact line and  Armenian-Azerbaijani border will strike not only CSTO but Russia  also, as well as its reputation as a player capable to keep the  situation under control. That regularly leads to anti Russian  intensions raising, and to attempts to find some counter-solutions,"  he mentioned. 

On December 29, 2016, in the result of diversion  penetration attempt  of Azerbaijani troops to the territory of Armenia, three Armenian  soldiers  perished.

According to the expert's estimates, the incidents at  Armenian-Azerbaijani border hint the answer due to the liability  zones splitting and operational load of Moscow and OSCE  Minsk Group.  Being focused at Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the OSCE Minsk Group is  not very effective n respect to the situation at Armenian-Azerbaijani  border. Meanwhile, Moscow could make effective steps   to decrease  the tension level exactly in the "border dimension", which has its  specific nuances. 

 "In the case of violence escalation at the border al the integration  projects of Moscow  will turn doubtful.  And after that Russia will  have to intervene the conflict and bear certain disbursements,  or to  get to passive monitoring and face unavoidable political losses. That  is why all the collisions at Armenian-Azerbaijani border should be  always in the focus of Moscow's attention," the expert stated.