Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said today that Russia had exchanged views with the United States and the European Union on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh before the military operation lightning of the Azeri forces last month.

Politico had previously reported that top US and EU officials had secretly met with their Russian counterparts in Turkey for urgent talks on Nagorno-Karabakh just days before Azerbaijan launches its operation in the breakaway enclave.

According to the Politico report, the emergency meeting marks a rare – if ultimately failed – contact between Moscow and the West on a major security issue in the region, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine that ended all diplomatic contact.

A senior diplomat with knowledge of the discussions told Politico that the meeting took place on September 17 in Istanbul as part of efforts to pressure Azerbaijan to end its nine-month blockade of the enclave and allow humanitarian aid convoys from Armenia to enter the region.

According to the envoy, the meeting focused on “how to move the trucks” and ensure that food and fuel supplies could reach its 100,000 residents.

The US was represented by Louis Bono, Washington’s senior adviser on the Caucasus, while the EU sent Toivo Klaar, its representative for the region. Russia, meanwhile, sent Igor Hovaevwho serves as Putin’s special envoy for relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Such high-level diplomatic contacts are rare. In March, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came face to face on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in India.

In a statement to Politico, an EU official said that “we believe it is important to maintain channels of communication with interlocutors to avoid misunderstandings.” The official also noted that Klaar had tried to keep the lines open on several fronts in “past years,” including talks with Khovaev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin.