If Russia was having problems, would it ratchet up tensions there to create a broader zone of problems to contend with to distract or punish the West.
It also serves has the possibility of serving as a warning to Georgia.
It pays to remember that this area isn't just contested. It had a referendum in 2006, it's declared independence, etc. etc. It's recognized by three "countries", the list of which had better be damn-well familiar: S. Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria.
If there's no familiarity, these are three little puppet territories. All three exist thanks to the good will of Russia, and all three were formed to protect Russians (in name, at least, even if they're a minority of the population) and primarily to punish uppity little "ethnic minority" states----Georgia and Moldova--that failed to properly behave and be subject to their liege and master.
The Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic would dearly like to be added to that list of mini-states. One of them--the LPR?--has been recognized by at least one or two of the mini-states already.
As for Armenia, it's solidly pro-Russian. They teach Russian from 2nd grade, some subjects are just taught in Russian. They use Russian textbooks, sometimes in Armenian translation. Most people know Russian, and I've known Armenians who preferred Russian for everyday use. It's primed for language shift in the next generation or two if they're not careful. Russian TV channels and other media and in some professions its the daily medium of communication. They're firmly Customs Union. This is even without the perpetual thorn produced by the never-ending conflict with the Shi'ite Turkic Azeri.
Personally, conflicts should not be frozen. They should be resolved. If it happens at the conference table, wonderful. But if it needs to happen. Either the situation on the ground needs to change--if it means population movement, that's what it means; if it means battle and bloodshed until one side realizes it's lost and accepts the accommodations necessary for the bloodshed to stop, that's what it means. The attitude that the top 5% of the education public in the West has that if we just stop fighting everything'll be ironed out because, gee, that's what "we" think people should be like just creates problems. The top 5% don't stay in charge; and when that happens, you get the bottom 50% having a lot of say in how things are resolved. (As has been pointed out, you check into the DPR and LPR crowd, the Transnistria crowd, the leaders of S. Ossetia or Abkhazia--you get mediocre students engaged in hero worship, romanticizing a past drawn more from crap literature than reality, and who have a lot of popular support or just want power so they can drink good whiskey until they're passed out drunk instead of cheap vodka. They're not deep thinkers. They're the kind of people that get into fist fights and think that important points are scored by calling their enemies dirty or insulting names.
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