The Coming War in the Caucasus
Azerbaijani Control of Nagorno-Karabakh Will Not Stop Conflict in the South Caucasus
In the South Caucasus, Can New Trade Routes Help Overcome a History of Conflict?
Thomas de Waal: Zangezur is crucial route for north-south and east-west directions
Thomas de Waal: 2024 is somewhat dangerous moment for Armenia
Russia and Armenia Have Obligations to Protect Territorial Integrity, Moscow Says
Իշխանությունը փոխելու երեք տարբերակ կա, երեքն էլ անհնար է..միակ փրկությունը՝ հասկանալ, որ հիվանդ ենք
Հայաստանին պատժելու են. Փաշինյանին չեն ներելու. Բենիամին Մաթևոսյան
Դիլեմա 25. Արտահերթ թողարկում
Հայ ժողովուրդը չունի հեռահար ռազմավարական նպատակներ, ի տարբերություն մեր թշնամիների. Վահե Բեգոյան
Խնդրանք ՌԴ նախագահին՝ ստանձնելու Արցախի ուղիղ ղեկավարումը. Հայկ Բաբուխանյան
Kevork Almassian: What is USAID's Samantha Power doing in Armenia?
Armenia Opts for Pashinyan, Democracy Despite Defeat in War
Armenian Citizenship Of Karabakh Refugees Called Into Question
‘Armenia Must Normalize Relations with Baku and Ankara or Pack Its Bags and Move,’ Libaridian Says
Քե՛զ ի՞նչ դրանից, որ Թուրքիան ճանաչեց Ցեղասպանությունը. Հովիկ Աղազարյան
«Եթե հանկարծ Սորոսը Արցախ մտնի, մենք մեր հացը կուտենք». Գուրգեն Եղիազարյան
Եթե իշխանությունը հանձնվի սորոսական Մասիս Մայիլյանին, դա կլինի Արցախի վերջը. Արամ Հարությունյան
Դանիել Իոաննիսյանին պետք է արգելել դիտորդություն իրականացնել Արցախում․ նա աջակցում է Սորոսի թեկնածու համարվող Մասիս Մայիլյանին
Both Armenia and Artsakh had fallen under Western influence. The gossip at the time was that Moscow had warned Yerevan (which had already fallen to Western-financed political activists with pro-Turkish and anti-Russian sentiments) that if Armenians similarly allowed Western or Soros-affiliated individuals to also come to power in Stepanakert, the Kremlin would pull its protective hand away from Artsakh and allow Baku to settle the matter militarily. I don't know if there was any truth to this rumor, but what ended-up happening afterwards was more-or-less in-line with it. Clearly, anti-Russian interests had made serious inroads not only in Armenia but also in Artsakh. If American agent Richard Giragosian is to be believed, Yerevan and Stepanakert, in-tandem with Baku, did not want to see a Russian military intervention in Artsakh during the forty-four day war in 2020. We all knew Baku did not want Moscow's intervention in Artsakh. What we didn't know is that the same apparently applied to Yerevan and Stepanakert as well. What a "democratic Armenia" wanted to see instead was a Western intervention, that needless to say never came. Here we had two political entities, Armenia and Artsakh, that could not live without Russia, suddenly hosting anti-Russian governments with connections to Western and Turkish interests. That folks, is Armenian-style politics. Needless to say, it would not end well. For a long time before the war in 2020, sober-minded Armenian patriots were warning Armenian society about the increase of anti-Russian, pro-Western and pro-Turkish activities inside Armenia, and the serious dangers that came with such a situation. Some of us were warning that Armenia and/or Artsakh were heading towards a disaster as a result. Overcome by arrogance, cognitive dissonance and political illiteracy, and fooled by Western promises of prosperity, the Armenian World chose to act deaf, dumb and blind. Turks and Azeris, who unlike us Armenians have been traditionally and culturally immune to the kind of Western toxicity Armenians love to embrace and consume, fully understood the serious mess Armenians had gotten Armenia into:
Ilham Aliyev: Pashinyan is a product of Soros
Daily Sabah: How Vladimir Putin punished Nikol Pashinian
Turks and Azeris therefore understood that this was their historic opportunity. After 2018, it was only a matter of time before Armenians would be comprehensively defeated. For a vast majority of Armenians in 2018, and a significant number even after 2020, Nikol was the man that would finally solve all of Armenia's post-Soviet problems. This is how the Armenian lust for the good life and easy money was used against Armenians. This is how Western and Turkish interests embedded themselves in Armenia. This is how Armenians maneuvered Armenia and Artsakh out of geopolitical contention and into a dead end. This is ultimately how Armenia and Artsakh were turned into chessboards and Armenians into pawns. Artsakh became the sacrificial lamb to the most revered Armenian god of all - Mammon.
However,
the Armenian fantasy of wanting to live peaceful and opulent lives with
Turks and Azeris, without Russian meddling nonetheless, came to a quick end when
after the fall of Artsakh it soon became apparent that Turks and Azeris are not interested in peace with Armenians. And now, there is fear that Azerbaijan may invade Armenia. Armenians are only now slowly beginning to understand that Artsakh was indeed serving as a defensive shield for Armenia and that Turks and Azeris are not interested in peaceful coexistence with Armenians. Armenians are only now beginning to understand that without
Artsakh, official Yerevan holds no leverage over Baku. Armenians are only now beginning to
understand what diminished or decreased Russian influence in the south
Caucasus means for Armenia. Tragically, Artsakh ended-up bearing the brunt of all
our sins. All told, Armenians were outclassed, outmaneuvered and soundly
defeated by Turks. Artsakh was finally taken from us. In the big
picture, we as a people proved unworthy of Artsakh. What we are left with now is
death, destruction, displacement, suffering, embarrassment, mourning,
sadness, anger, bewilderment, and an uncertain future for Armenia. Today, Armenians once again find themselves doing what they do best:
lamenting, protesting, complaining and begging.
Sadly, the modern
Armenian-psyche seems most comfortable with reacting to defeat and
tragedy, than to success and victory.
The past thirty years have
proven beyond any doubt that we Armenians are not ready for
independence, and the past five years in particular have shown beyond
any doubt that we don’t
even deserve independence. We are simply not that people and the south Caucasus is not that place. The
past five years have also shown those who still have eyes to see that
Armenia cannot survive without Russia despite how much we may want
Armenia to be an independent state. Let's also recognize that the West has
never been and will never be a viable option for Armenians in a place
like the south Caucasus. Simply put, post-Soviet Armenia is not a viable state.
Even today, even under Nikol's Western and Turkish led regime, Armenia is able to live because of its
economic and military ties to Russia.
Allow me to recap what Russia means for a tiny, landlocked, impoverished and remote nation surrounded by Turkic-Islamic enemies:
Despite what our
professional Russophobes want us to believe, Russia remains, even today,
the primary geopolitical factor keeping western Turks on their side of the Arax
River. Russia is by-far Armenia's largest trade partner and
financial investor. Russia is the destination for a vast majority of
Armenian products. Russia is home to the largest Armenian diaspora on
earth. In fact, it is said that more Armenians live in Russia than in
Armenia. A vast majority of Armenia's migrant workers work in Russia,
and the remittances
that these workers send back to Armenia makes up a large portion of
Armenia's annual GDP. The vast majority of tourists that Armenia's
important tourism industry receives annually hail from Russia. Russia provides a landlocked Armenia with very low cost energy. Russia helps Armenians operate Armenia's strategtic nuclear powerplant. In fact, Armenia pays several times less for Russian energy than what European customers pay. Moreover, for Armenia, Russian energy is cheaper than even Iranian.
Very large amounts of modern weapons systems from Russia was
traditionally
provided to Armenia at domestic prices, and much of those weapons would
end-up deployed in Artsakh. Moreover, Armenia has been one of the
beneficiaries of the tragedy in Ukraine, largely thanks to Russia. Finally, Armenia's economy has been booming recently, again, largely thanks to Russia.
The above is a general snapshot highlighting what Russia means to Armenia and why Armenia is desperately depended on Russia for survival.
Armenia survives in a Turkic-Islamic region of the world primarily due to its economic and military ties to Russia. Armenian and Western sources reluctantly admit this. They therefore want to strip Armenia of its economic lifeline as well. Therefore, the effort to drive a wedge between Russia and Armenia is not only political, it is also economic. The agenda is more-or-less designed to collapse Armenia altogether, just for the sake of undermining Russia in the south Caucasus. Simply put, Armenia cannot survive in a place like the south Caucasus without Russia. We Armenians, as we
currently exists, are simply incapable of nation-building in a very
complex and dangerous place like the south Caucasus. Anyone that
cannot see any of this is either an idiot or an agent of Western and/or
Turkish
influence, or both. Attempts by Armenians to maintain independence from Russia, will only result in prolonging Armenia's misery and mutilation. This is what Nikol wants. This is what Nikol's so-called officials want. We need to put a stop to this before it's too late. If
Armenia does not join the Russian Federation in some form within the
foreseeable future, there may not even be an Armenia on the world map in
a few more years. Let's therefore have the humility, vision,
wisdom, foresight and the patriotism to finally put an end to our post-Soviet nightmare
called independence, and begin the journey back to Mother Russia. The writing has been on the wall for a long time:
General Leonid Ivashov: if Armenia realizes the gravity of the situation, immediate steps must be taken towards deep military and political integration with Russia, because salvation is not from the West, but from RussiaI reiterate: Armenians are incapable of nation-building, especially in a place like the south Caucasus. The last thirty-plus years have proven beyond any doubt that we as a people will achieve nothing good on our own. Some historians may even say the last two thousand years. Being that Armenia is located in the south Caucasus, and not in central America or southern Europe, the only thing left to look forward to is Armenia's absorption back into Mother Russia. The only question now is: will Moscow want us back?
Moscow did not want this
Although Russia did not have a defense-pact with Artsakh and Moscow had never fully supported Armenian claims over Artsakh (Tehran didn't either), Kremlin officials did not want to see Artsakh's capitulation and depopulation in this manner. As Zori Balayan futilely tried to remind us in an open letter back in 2013, Russia's responsibilities towards Artsakh goes back two centuries. He was asking Moscow to take on a more hands-on approach in Artsakh. He was of course mercilessly attacked by the Armenian society, including none-other-than Nikol. Nevertheless, Russia and Artsakh were historically connected. Christian Armenians (and Georgians) in the middle of a Turkic-Islamic south Caucasus was a strategic opportunity from an imperial Russian perspective. It was well known throughout the post-Soviet period that Moscow wanted to establish a permanent troop presence in Artsakh. To do so, there obviously had to be Armenians living on the territory. It was therefore in Moscow's strategic interests to maintain an Armenian presence in Artsakh. All the while, Moscow was constantly searching for an opportunity to deploy its troops in the territory. This worried some powerful circles. Russians in Artsakh, not Turks, was after-all what Western agents and their lemmings throughout Armenian society, like Nikol, were primarily concerned about. Despite the Russophobic wishes of Armenians and Turks, Moscow finally got its chance to establish a troop presence in Artsakh at the end of Armenia's disastrous defeat in the forty-four day war in 2020. It can be argued that by 2020, senior Kremlin policymakers preferred to see an Armenian defeat in Artsakh, at least in-part to have a legitimate political excuse to deploy Russian troops in the territory. Traditionally, the power-broker in the south Caucasus essentially since the early 19th century, Moscow desperately wanted and still wants to be the main peace-broker in Artsakh as well.
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Russia and the West Still Need Each Other in Nagorno-Karabakh
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In Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Deal, Putin Applied a Deft New Touch
How Russia Pushed For—and Achieved—a Military Presence in Artsakh
France struggles to retain Karabakh sway after Armenia defeat
In Nagorno-Karabakh peace deal, Russia’s Putin claims a strategic win. But risks are attached
Why Russian peacekeepers are a threat to peace in the South Caucasus
Russia’s Challenges in the South Caucasus Amid the War in Ukraine
Renewed Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Underlines Russia’s Waning Influence
Russia's Lavrov says Moscow ready to send mission to Armenia-Azerbaijan border
Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is possible — but a Russia-backed oligarch is trying to stop it
How the West Managed to Sideline Russia in Mediating the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
Russian Peacekeepers Find Themselves Sidelined in Nagorno-Karabakh
Armenia’s Pashinyan gives up Karabakh, abandons Russia-led CSTO
Security Council secretary: Armenia will not join Russia-Belarus Union State
Pashinyan Confirms Agreeing to Place Artsakh Under Azerbaijan’s Control
EU observer mission agreed as Pashinyan and Aliyev meet in Prague
In Blow to Russia, Armenian Separatists Capitulate in Nagorno-Karabakh
How did we get here?
The short answer to the complex question of how Armenia and Artsakh got to where they are today is: "democracy", "westernization", and Vartan Oskanian's utterly dysfunctional "complimentary politics", all showcased by the now infamous revolution that Armenia's suffered in 2018. This Western-financed regime change in Yerevan came almost exactly ten-years after Levon Ter Petrosyan's and Nikol Pashinyan's unsuccessful Color Revolution attempt in 2008. The failure of the attempt in 2008 must have taught its organizers some very valuable lessons. The next attempt would therefore be better organized. Consequently, Nikol's second revolution now infamously known as Armenia's "Velvet Revolution" of 2018 proved highly successful. It was obvious from day one that Nikol and his co-conspirators were meticulously cultivated for this task. The lords of this world knew exactly what Armenian society wanted, or rather deserved. Tailor-made for the Armenian psyche, Nikol and his team were enthusiastically supported by a vast majority of Armenians around the world. Nikol was universally exalted by Armeniandom. The American-Armenian Diaspora made a documentary film about him, native Armenians wrote songs about him, the Cilician Armenian Church showered praises upon him. In reality, however, a terrible evil had raised its head in Armenia.
Levon Shirinyan's dream has turned into reality. Armenia is indeed becoming like a Turkish dog, instead of being an agent of Russia. Since we are still on the topic of how we got here. If there is one photographic gem from the sad saga known as post-Soviet Armenia that can accurately summarize the tragic path Armenia and Artsakh were set on in recent years, it would be the following one, circa 2012 featuring Western-financed activists, native and diasporan, one of whom, Babken DerGrigoryan, later became an official for Nikol's regime:
And who ended-up "fucking themselves" in the end? Armenians! As always. The above two examples of Western-financed Russophobia and Turkophilia in post-Soviet Armenia are in a nutshell exactly why we are where we are today. It was obvious from day one that the political culture and mindset that had come to fore in 2018 would not end well for neither Armenia and Artsakh. The 2018 regime change in Armenia brought to the political limelight a large group of well-known professional Russophobes and Turkophiles on the payroll of various Western and Turkish interests. A country that was almost totally dependent on Russia for survival suddenly found itself under the control of anti-Russian activists. It was only a matter of time before the geopolitical status quo would begin falling apart. Western-financed individuals that had been preaching reconciliation with Turks and burning Russian flags just prior to 2018, were thrust into political power under mysterious circumstances. The most worrying part for me at the time was the Kremlin's seeming complacency, if not complicity. Not only did Moscow not oppose the rise of Nikol and his team to power in Yerevan, it actually welcomed it. Soon thereafter, Russians began accusing Nikol's regime of being a den of anti-Russian activists. Something did not feel right. This, needless to say, was extremely worrying for me. Nikol's rise to power and Moscow's inaction raised a lot of questions in my head. Was this an ominous sign that the prevailing geopolitical calculus at the time, the status quo, had begun to change against Armenia's favor. Was Moscow beginning to pull its protective hand away from Armenia and/or Artsakh? Were major geopolitical changes lurking on the not too distant horizon? Was a major war coming? I knew that Kremlin officials were one of the world's top masters in the art of not allowing a crisis to go to waste. How would Moscow therefore react to Nikol's rise to power? By allow the rise of repugnant creatures like Nikol and his teammates, was Moscow getting ready to devaluate its ties with Yerevan in order to appease Turks and Azeris ahead of something big that was to come down the road? Serj Sargsyan's unexpected and highly suspicious resignation did not alleviate any of my concerns, to say the least. Then the ominous Blood Moon and Planet Mars that appeared in the skies of Yerevan on July 27, 2018 only served to increase my concerns. The political events that took place in 2018 felt as if Armenia had fallen victim to a sinister conspiracy that was multinational in nature and heralded by celestial bodies, and Nikol was its earthly manifestation. I suspected early on that Nikol's rise to power had something to do with Artsakh. I made my feelings known in this blog at the time. Little did I know the terrible times that actually lay ahead for the entire region. In hindsight, the darkness we Armenians are living in today was set in motion in 2018. And the disastrous forty-four day war in Artsakh in 2020 seemed to have been the opening salvo of the broader, global conflagration Eurasia finds itself in today. All in all, it has been a hellish five years for Armenia and Artsakh.
Political events that took place in Armenia in the spring of 2018, started processes that eventually led to the end of the road for Artsakh. And now, Armenia awaits an uncertain future; all because Armenian's political and business elite desperately wanted independence from Russia and believed that close ties with Western powers and rapprochement with Turkey and Azerbaijan would fix all of Armenia's post-Soviet ailments. Like so, Armenia and Armenians fell victim to a decades-long, Western and Turkish agenda designed to lure Armenians out of the Russian orbit in order to have their way with Armenia. Stripping Armenia's of its Russian protection and making Armenia isolated and therefore vulnerable to Turkish inroads is exactly what Westerners and Turks, and their Armenian lemmings throughout Armenian society, had been wishing for many years:
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Kenneth Yalowitz: Expanding NATO-Armenia cooperation to boost Armenia's security
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The US Must Save Armenia From Russia
Stephen Blank: Russia Pressures Armenia to Join a Revamped Union State
Turkish agents are throughout social media doing their best to alter/warp Armenian perceptions
Peace in the Caucuses is good for the West and bad for Russia
Armenia Cannot Go West Until Russia Loses its War Against Ukraine
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against [the Russians]. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia"As we can see, it's all about Russia again, and increasingly so about China. Western civilization has had an irrational and somewhat mysterious or inexplicable fear and hatred of Russia and Russians going back centuries. I personally think it goes beyond mere politics. In any case, the admission by the above mentioned CIA-operative is also why Uighurs have an office in Washington DC. The geostrategic intent is to keep rising nations like Russia and China contained and embroiled in conflict, In a nutshell, Western intelligence agencies, as well as Israel's Mossad, support Islamist terror groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS for geopolitical reasons. From a Western-imperial standpoint, radical Islamist is an easily manipulated animal (which is primarily done through intelligence organizations of allied nations such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey). And radical Islam is also a powerful geopolitical weapon and a tool. Covertly supporting such groups is an essential constituent of the hybrid war Western powers wage against geopolitical upstarts and nonconforming governments. It's all about undermining geopolitical competitors around the world in order to stay on top of the global food-chain. Periodic attacks by such extremists against Western assets is basically seen as a price well worth paying to keep nations like Russia, Serbia, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran and China embroiled in conflict. Let's for once recognize that everything in the Western world today is weaponized: Language, culture, banking, trade, money, financial loans, humanitarian aid, industry, journalism, sexuality, medicine, narcotics, academia, scholastic curriculum, minority rights, human rights, religion, cults, television programming, entertainment, etc. All of these are seen as weapons or tools of manipulation, exploitation, meddling, coercion and violence. For Western imperialists, liberal minded democracy seekers and radical minded Islamists are therefore two sides of the same coin.
General Leonid Ivashov: if Armenia realizes the gravity of the situation, immediate steps must be taken towards deep military and political integration with Russia, because salvation is not from the West, but from Russia
Belarus’ Lukashenko Says Armenia ‘Can’t Escape’ Union State With Russia
Samvel Karapetyan: Various forces are pushing Armenia away from Russia, this cannot be allowed
Breaking Ties With Russia And Refocusing On France Could Destroy Armenia
Markedonov: Russia may lose its positions in the Caucasus, usually accompanied by destabilization
Russia strongly criticizes new EU mission in Armenia
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Robert Kocharyan: Turkey's factor in Karabakh process can be neutralized only through active involvement of Russia
Ex-Russian Envoy Warns Armenia Over European Integration Drive
Russian defense adviser 'urges for Armenia’s vigilance' as he comments upon US report
Russia concerned that pro-Westerners will dominate next Armenia parliament
Russian General Leonid Ivashov: Turkey Seeks Separation Between Russia and Armenia
Американские корни Почему реплика Маргариты Симоньян привела в бешенство Никола Пашиняна
Американские корни Почему реплика Маргариты Симоньян привела в бешенство Никола Пашиняна
Russian Embassy sends note to Armenian Foreign Ministry over false accusations
Pelosi’s visit fires debate in Armenia over alliance with Russia
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Armenia Holds Drills With US Troops Amid Rift With Russia
Armenia cancels military drills of Russian-led alliance
Armenia Might Quit Russia-Led Military Bloc
Pashinyan says Russian military presence “threatens Armenia’s security”
Security Council secretary: Armenia will not join Russia-Belarus Union State
Armenian PM: Russia isn’t defending us because we aren’t pro-Moscow enough
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"Nothing major that happens in politics happens by chance. Armenian politics is no different. The recent political unrest in Armenia had all the hallmarks of an international political conspiracy. There is no doubt in my mind that hidden hands brought Nikol and friends into power for a specific purpose. I also suspect Levon Petrosyan's hand in what happened. The only question is, what is that purpose? I suspected an Artsakh connection from early on. I fear that an agreement has been reached over the fate of Artsakh, an agreement that will not please Armenians. In a sense, Serj may have given Nikol the "honor" of agreeing to major land concessions sometime in the near future."
"Pressure is being put on Armenia to settle the Artsakh dispute. This is why Nikol and friends are in power today. They will be expected to make peace with Baku. And if war comes, allow me to remind the reader of a well known Wall Street saying: past performances do not guarantee future results. The stage is currently being set. If another major war is forced upon Armenia, our arrogant idiots, those who have been boasting about Armenian military superiority over Azeris for many years now, will be in for a nasty surprise. What we as a people are doing in Armenia today is setting up our "boys" for a potential slaughter on the battlefield. I really hope I am proven wrong in this regard, but I don't think I will be. The first fatal mistake a fighter makes is to overestimate his capabilities. The second fatal mistake a fighter makes is misjudge or underestimate his opponent. We Armenians have a long history of making such grave mistakes essentially because we have a long history of arrogance, shortsightedness and political illiteracy. And Armenia has paid an immense price as a result."
Looking at Armenian-Turkish Relations - Without the Paranoia, Obsessions or the Hysteria - October, 2009Armenia Assaulted by Orange Agents - March, 2008
We collectively made Armenia and Artsakh vulnerable to Western and Turkish meddling ultimately because we wanted to distance ourselves from Russia's perceived "overbearing" influence. Official Yerevan eagerly used Vartan Oskanian's complimentary politics to avoid land concessions in Artsakh and become eligible for financial aid from the West. We enthusiastically adopted all forms of Western agendas. We hosted an army of Western financed NGOs and one of the largest U.S. embassies in the world. Everything we did during the past thirty-plus years was more-or-less designed around luring more Western capitol and therefore influence into Armenia. Naturally, with Western political influence came Turkish political influence. In a nutshell, we wanted to embrace the "progressive West" as a buffer against "repressive Russia". We did everything possible to maintain "independence" from Russia, even though we knew Armenia was almost totally dependent on Russia for survival. It was collective cognitive dissonance and political illiteracy at work. We collectively alienated Russia from Armenia, and did so at the worst possible time. Again, this is where the traditional diaspora, to its eternal shame, played a significant role by being a pack-animal for all sorts of Western and Turkish agendas in the country.
Հարցազրույց Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյանի հետ
Օրակարգից դուրս. Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյան
Ուրվագիծ 28.03.2017 Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյան
Հարցազրույց Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյանի հետ
Ես առաջարկում էի Ղարաբաղը դարձնել Ինքնավար Հանրապետություն. համարյա լուծված հարց էր. Կարեն Դեմիրճյան
I do realize that all this is much easier said than done. I also realize that everything is seen much more clearly in hindsight. This is why the "street" cannot be involved in making political policy. This is why "democracy" is toxic, especially for a people like us Armenians. This is why we needed serious think tanks, state institutions and a cadre of experienced diplomats to help Armenia and Artsakh navigate through the geopolitical storm in the region. We could have settled the Artsakh dispute when we were still in a position of strength. We could have joined the Union State with Russian and Belarus when it was still possible to do so. Had we as a people done any of the aforementioned, we would not have seen the capitulation of Stepanakert and the depopulation of Artsakh. All of them - Levon, Robert and Serj - failed to secure Armenia's and Artsakh's security. All of them are therefore responsible, directly or indirectly, for bringing Nikol and his team of Western-financed Russophobes and Turkophiles to power in 2018. All of them brought evil to Armenia and Artsakh. Of all of them, however, President Robert Kocharyan was and still remains the lesser evil. Perhaps a bit too late, President Kocharyan did nevertheless have the political wisdom and honesty to encourage Armenia's reintegration with Russia, recognize that only Russia can neutralize Turkey in the south Caucasus, and call for the curbing of Western activity in the country.
Lavrov: Russian peacekeeping force in Karabakh “no longer concerns Armenia”
Deal On Karabakh’s Status Should Be Left to ‘Future Generations,’ Says Russia
We Armenians have always placed our narrow, personal interests and the security of our private domains above that of our nation's interests and security. As a collective body, as a people, we do not comprehend or appreciate the importance of statehood, we do not comprehend the fundamental necessity to unconditionally rally around our state, we do not have the zeal to fight for what is ours, and we don't recognize the authority of other Armenians over us. This is why I keep saying that we as a people are not ready for independence, nor do we deserve independence. The past thirty-two years, and the last six years in particular, is its proof. This is why I say, we need to go back into the Russian fortress, for Armenia's sake. Otherwise, we simply won't survive in a place like the south Caucasus. I always bring up the life and death of Mkhitar Sparapet as a quintessential Armenian story, a story we needed to derive important lessons from. Needless to say, he is not the only Armenian leader martyred at the hands of his compatriots. Unfortunately, there are many.
The ancient city of Edessa had come under Armenian rule by the late 11-th century. Its leader was an elderly Armenian man known to history as Prince Thoros. Prince Thoros was hated by the city's predominantly Armenian population because he was a member of the Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Church and therefore politically allied to Byzantium. This apparently did not sit well with the Armenian church, as well as Armenian princes opposed to Byzantium. Sounds familiar? Armenians today hate men like Serj Sargsyan, Robert Kocharyan, Sergey Lavrov, Margarita Simonyan, Anastas Mikoyan, etc., essentially because they are "Russified" and therefore pro-Russian. Getting back to the story of Prince Thoros of Edessa. Unexpectedly, a few dozen heavily armed and armored Frankish Crusaders led by a very ambitious and cunning Norman knight by the name of Baldwin of Boulogne (later known as Baldwin I of Jerusalem) showed up at the gates of Edessa in 1098. Perhaps impressed with the imposing sight of these physically large and heavily armed Christian warriors adorned with crucifixes standing at their gate, Armenians quickly invited them into the city and asked them for protection against Seljuk Turks that were increasingly becoming a problem in the region at the time. For his part, Baldwin of Boulogne simply wanted to make a name for himself by becoming the first Frankish leader to establish a Crusader state in the Holy Land. Edessa, although some distance away from Jerusalem, would be good enough alternative for the time being. And luck would be on his side.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared" - Cicero, 42 B.C.
“For the power of the nation-state by no means consists only in its armed forces, but also in its economic and technological resources, in the dexterity, foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted; the efficiency of its social and political organizations. It consists most of all in the nation itself, the people; their skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative; their beliefs, myths and illusions. And it consists, further, in the way all these factors are related to one another. Moreover, national power has to be considered not only in itself, in its absolute extent, but relative to the state’s foreign or imperial obligations; it has to be considered relative to the power of other states” - Correlli Barnett
Clinton Calls Eurasian Integration An Effort To 'Re-Sovietize'
Armenian diaspora: Focus on Russia rather than Turkey!
Only through breaking Armenia’s dependency on Russia—through renormalization with Azerbaijan and Turkey—will the region’s true economic potential be unleashed.
Kenneth Yalowitz: Expanding NATO-Armenia cooperation to boost Armenia's security
Why Russian peacekeepers are a threat to peace in the South Caucasus
The US Must Save Armenia From Russia
Study Abroad in Turkey for Armenian American Students
Turkish agents are throughout social media doing their best to alter/warp Armenian perceptions
Union state with Russia։ Who and why speak against the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia
Robert Kocharyan calls for ‘full-fledged integration’ with Russia
Vanetsyan: Possibility of deeper Armenia-Russia integration should be considered after our coming to power
Creation of new mechanisms for strategic relations with Russia: Armenian National Congress presents pre-election program
Prosperous Armenia Party leader: Only Russia can ensure security of our country
Ազդարարվեց` «Ուժեղ Հայաստան` Ռուսաստանի հետ. հանուն նոր միության» նախաձեռնության մեկնարկի մասին
ՌԴ-ի հետ Միութենական պետության ստեղծումը հնարավոր սցենարներից մեկն է. Արթուր Ղազինյան
Lukashenko on integration prospects: Armenia will definitely be with us
Belarus’ Lukashenko Says Armenia ‘Can’t Escape’ Union State With Russia
Putin says it’s ‘not in Armenia’s interests’ to leave Russian-led group
Russia ‘Not Worried About’ Armenia’s Eurasian Union Presidency
Breaking Ties With Russia Could Destroy Armenia
Russians are a truly unique people among nations of the world. Russia does indeed have a mysterious soul. Russia is indeed a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, inside an enigma. Despite being centrally located in the most exposed, most dangerous and most complicated location on earth (i.e. bordering Europe, Central Asia and the Far-east, and therefore surrounded by much larger enemies that have periodically invaded Russian lands), Russia has survived over five-hundreds years as a major power on earth. Russia, as an identifiable nation-state, has existed continously for well over one thousand years. This is remarkable in the annals of human history. In my opinion, there are three reasons behind what makes Russia, Russia: Slavic, Viking and Asiatic pedigrees (all of which contribute to the enduring warrior spirit found among Russians); long-standing political institutions and think tanks; the presence of a supernatural hand over the Russian nation, perhaps due to receiving the mantle of Christian Orthodoxy after the fall of Byzantium in 1453. Historical circumstances such as geography, periodic tragedy and racial pedigree, with perhaps a little bit of divine intervention, have bred Russians to be who they are today. Today, even after exposure to the dumbing and numbing effects of western civilization, the typical Russian male still makes the perfect soldier. Modern Russian society is still ready to endure great hardship in the name of patriotism. Russians are still great chess players by nature, and they tend to play the long game. Senior policymakers and national institutions that devise foreign policy in Russia tend to be pragmatic, practical and calculating. If I had to describe the Russian appeoach to political affairs, it would be realpolitik. This is not to say Russians don't make mistakes. It can be argued that the Kremlin made mistakes with regards to Ukraine and Armenia/Artsakh. Regarding Artsakh, the Kremlin simply did what it had to do given the prevailing circumstances. Similar to how the war in Ukraine developed after the first Russian soldier placed his foot into the country is not what Kremlin officials expected or wanted, the fall of Artsakh is also not what Kremlin officials wanted. These were both setbacks for Moscow, in part due to its miscalculation. Nevertheless, let's be mindful of the fact that Russia alone is fighting the collective West and its allies today. It's a tall order. Setbacks and mistakes should therefore be expected. Nevertheless, the mere fact that Russia has existed as a superpower after centuries of major wars and tragedies, including rebounding from complete collapse brought upon the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and the fall of Soviet Union in 1991, suggests that Russian, perhaps with the help of the invisible hand I mentioned earlier, are doing something right.
Now, if you are a small, poor and landlocked nation located in one of Russia's strategic zones of interest and influence and you want to survive in the master level game of chess being played by Russians (i.e. be treated well by Russia's aforementioned chess masters), you need to somehow figure out how to become an important piece on the Russian chess board.
Iran warns of turning Caucasus into battlefield
"[Russian peacekeepers] no longer concerns the Armenian side... This is a matter of bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. The presidents discussed this topic, they agreed that at this stage the presence of Russian peacekeepers plays a positive role in strengthening stability, trust in the region and facilitating the return of Karabakh residents who want to do so.”
Armenians were a somebody when they were inside the Russian body. Outside the Russian body, Armenians are a nobody.
Despite lasting only one day, the conflict led to 412 official causalities for both sides and according to the Armenian Government has led to ethnic cleansing – with practically the entire Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, numbering over 100,000, fleeing from the disputed region to Armenia in the days following the clash. The one-day war also surprisingly resulted in relatively high causalities for both sides.
Military Imbalance Eroding the Status Quo
Nagorno-Karabakh started to become a conflict region in 1988, when the local Armenian population started to claim the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous region from Azerbaijan and demanded to join Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). This process triggered the First Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1992-1994, and ended with defeat of Azerbaijan, which lost control not only over the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous region, but also of seven ex-Azerbaijani SSR regions around Karabakh, most of which provided a land connection with Armenia, which Karabakh itself lacked. A ceasefire was brokered by Russia, but it never was completely fulfilled. Peace negotiations were mediated by the Minsk OSCE Troika (France, Russia and the USA) for many years without result and continued against the background of continuous violations of the ceasefire along the line of contact in Karabakh and even at the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
The status quo started to deteriorate in April 2016, when the first large-scale hostilities after 1994 started and resulted in small gains on the line of contact for Azerbaijan. This was the result of the military approach chosen by Baku, which became a much wealthier country after 2005, as it began to export of large volumes of fossil fuels amid higher oil prices. This would resulted in changing the military balance between the two countries’ armed forces, since the Azerbaijani defence budget was several times larger than Armenia’s. Baku enacted the large-scale procurement of tanks, artillery, armoured vehicles, air defence assets, combat aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Israel and Turkey starting from around 2005.
A major shift occurred in 2020, during the 44-day Second Nagorno-Karabakh war, where Azerbaijani troops managed to gain a military victory. The 2020 war demonstrated some of the newest components of modern warfare, including the massed use of combat UAVs such as the Bayraktar TB2, and ISR UAVs in combination with artillery and loitering munitions.
Azerbaijani Armed Forces were able to conduct a suppression of air defence (SEAD) operation almost without use of manned aviation, relying on the coordinated actions of uncrewed vehicles. Such success was reinforced with a more modern and creative approach in land warfare: the first failed attempts to undertake a ‘classical’ offensive with tanks and armoured vehicles were replaced with offensives by lighter mobile troops, which were able to disorganise the defending Armenian forces. Many of these modern approaches were taught to Azerbaijani Armed Forces by high-ranking Turkish officers, which Armenia has stated were actively involved in developing and conduction the operation. At the same time, Russian support to Armenia was very limited, despite the two countries being allies.
The war resulted in the Trilateral Statement, made by leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. According to statement, Azerbaijan gained control over territory of seven regions around Nagorno-Karabakh along with Shushi and Hadrut cities which were part of Karabakh, while Russia established a 1,960 personnel-strong peacekeeping mission which became security guarantor for local Armenians and was in charge of guarding the Lachin corridor – the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia proper. Also, the Statement outlined some bases for peace negotiations, including the exchange of POWs, opening of the transport communications between countries, and various others.
This postwar period was stable for only a few months, and in May 2021 Azerbaijan started to re-assert military pressure – now also directly on Armenia, as well as occupying border territories during limited operations. The most large-scale escalation happened on September 12-13, during which the intensity of hostilities was comparable to Second Karabakh war. Azerbaijani troops occupied more than 140 km2 of Armenian territory and conducted artillery and UAV strikes deep into Armenian territory, destroying some air defence assets and damaging Armenian Armed Forces bases. According to official sources, Armenia lost 202 and Azerbaijan lost 80 servicemen in just two days – more than during the 2016 four-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh. These hostilities showed that the Armenian Armed Forces were still not ready to organise an effective defence against Azerbaijan, especially in the sphere of air defence. As a result of the Azerbaijani attack, Armenia negotiated an EU monitoring mission to the border, which was established for 2 years and could be prolonged further.
Against the background of direct Armenia-Azerbaijan tension, Baku also started to put pressure on Nagorno-Karabakh, despite the existence of the Russian peacekeeping mission and security guarantees. The peacekeepers were shown to be very passive, especially after the beginning of Russo-Ukrainian war, which took a much higher priority for Russian military resource dedication, as well as limited general interest to the region. After several local attacks by Azerbaijani troops, which resulted in almost no reaction from the Russians, Baku started a blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by blocking the Lachin corridor in December 2022. This also did not lead to any real reaction from Russia and its peacekeepers. This passivity gave Baku the confidence sure that it could run a final military campaign in Karabakh, which started on September 19 and finished on September 20, 2023.
Success with Surprisingly High Causalities
The launch of hostilities in Karabakh on 19 September 2023 started with massed indirect fires by Azerbaijani troops on military objects and defence infrastructure along the line of contact. Azerbaijani troops used Lora tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), Harop and SkyStriker loitering munitions, tube and rocket artillery, as well as Spike-NLOS long-range anti-tank missiles. After this, their land forces launched an offensive, planning to cut Nagorno-Karabakh into 3 isolated parts, without entering the large cities, such as the capital – Stepanakert, or Martakert, which was surrounded but not taken. Despite the heavy indirect fire support, Azerbaijani land forces met fierce resistance in most directions and took higher-than-expected causalities. By contrast with their performance in 2020, Armenian forces even conducted several successful drone strikes, using modified civilian multicopters without encountering many counters from their enemy, which seemed unprepared for such actions.
Despite such innovations, the defenders had no chance of winning, as the region was already cut-off from Armenia and the number of troops was quite limited, with contemporary assessments of Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army estimating a strength of 7,000-10,000 servicemen. Alongside this, Azerbaijan’s pre-war 9-month blockade also diminished their fuel stocks, making their defensive and offensive options more limited.
Given this situation, if the war had not been stopped almost immediately by the surrender of Karabakh local authorities, the question would have been how many days it would have last and how many casualties sides would have, but the final result was never in doubt. Russian peacekeepers did everything to stay out of the conflict, despite that there is evidence of an artillery strike on one of their bases and two cases when Azerbaijani troops opened fire at them. That led to death of six peacekeepers, including Captain First Rank Ivan Kovgan, the deputy commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet submarine forces, and deputy commander of the peacekeeping mission. Following his death, an official apology was made by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev over a phone call to Vladimir Putin.
The one-day conflict resulted 192 dead and 512 wounded Azerbaijani servicemen, while local Armenian forces reported 220 servicemen dead and 360 wounded. Yet the most grave outcome of Azerbaijan’s offensive was that it resulted in the effective ceding of the self-proclaimed Artsakh Republic to Azerbaijan. Artsakh Republic President Samvel Shahramanyan signed a bill which dissolved the existence of the republic, allegedly with under the condition of threats to both himself and local population. Azerbaijan’s seizure of the region also resulted in the entire Armenian population of the former Artsakh Republic fleeing for Armenia, leading Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to accuse Azerbaijan of conducting the ethnic cleansing of the region. Additionally, several acting and former political and military leaders of the Artsakh Republic were arrested and are being prosecuted in Baku, including an Armenian-origin billionaire from Russia, Ruben Vardanyan, who moved to Karabakh before the blockade of Lachin corridor.
What Next?
Despite the fact that since 2020 Baku has attained its maximalist goals, and there are no practical obstacles for a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, tensions between the two countries is not decreasing. At present, Azerbaijan is seeking to get maximum possible out of negotiations on opening of the logistical routes between the countries. Based on the point 9 of the Trilateral Statement of 9 November 2020, Baku is demanding a railway and highway with special status, which should pass through Armenian territory and connect Azerbaijan’s mainland with its Nakhchivan exclave. This is known as the ‘Zangezur corridor’. According to the Trilateral Agreement, “The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the safety of transport communication between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with a view to organize the unimpeded movement of citizens, vehicles and cargo in both directions. Control over transport communication shall be exercised by the Border Guard Service bodies of the FSS [Federal Security Service – more commonly referred to as the FSB] of Russia”.
Moscow’s interest also lies with this ‘corridor’ idea, as it will provide Russia more on-the-ground presence in Armenia. Yerevan’s position in this case is to simply open the route for Azerbaijanis to go to Nakhichevan via Armenian territory, but with no special status road and no Russian FSB guarding the route in place of Armenian customs officers. This position has a certain logic, since de-facto, none of the ‘pro-Armenian’ points of the Trilateral Statement exist anymore – including security for Karabakh Armenians and the functioning of Lachin corridor, as well as exchange of all POWs – and the agreement has long since been seen as a failure.
Another artificial way of keeping the situation in tension is the issue of enclaves – small pieces of foreign territory which during the existence of the USSR were located in the Armenian and Azerbaijani SSRs. Azerbaijan wants its enclaves back under its control, despite the fact that Armenia also has enclaves with Azerbaijani territory, not counting the >140 km2 of territory occupied by Baku after 2020. The situation is complicated by the fact that an Armenian strategic highway connecting the country to Georgia passes by one of these enclaves. In reality, the only realistic ‘peaceful’ approach here is to leave the enclave question for a post-peace treaty delimitation and demarcation process, where such territories could be exchanged to benefits either side countries. However, the current tensions over regarding the enclaves represents a possible scenario for a further military incursion by Azerbaijan.
At the moment, there are three Azerbaijani enclaves in Armenia which are located in the Tavush province, located in Armenia’s North, and the Ararat province, located North of the Nakhchivan exclave. All are approximately 3-4 km from the border, which theoretically makes them a possible target for a limited rapid operation. However, the parts of the northern border where enclaves exist are both relatively well fortified and are located in mountainous and forested areas. During the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azeri troops were not able to breach the defences in the northern parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, despite a landing a hard blow at the beginning of hostilities. By contrast, Armenia’s southern border is much less fortified, since it never existed until Armenia’s defeat in 2020, before which this border was shared with the Artsakh Republic. Additionally the terrain in this area is more permissive, mainly comprising open plains. In a scenario where Azerbaijan would seek to link its mainland to these aforementioned enclaves by force, it would need to conduct an offensive on three axes of up to 8-9 km deep, and would likely result a heavy multi-day war. Such a conflict is more difficult to diplomatically ‘sell’ as a limited border skirmish, and as such would carry a greater risk of triggering sanctions. Which perhaps serving as a potential dissuasive element, this does not guarantee such a scenario would not come to pass.
Another and perhaps the most probable conflict scenario for the near future would be a limited operation on the ‘new’ border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, similar to scale and style to one in September 2022. This means, that Azerbaijani troops will have limited time, but not scale or intensity for the attack, with the probable aim being that Azerbaijan’s forces take their objectives before an international response can be organised. If successful, this could notably change the tactical situation on the borders, as well as put more pressure on the Armenian leadership to make more one-sided concessions, most probably related to the Zangezur corridor and/or enclaves issue. The real scenario may include the same idea as in September 2022 – to create a feasible risk of encirclement of a relatively large Armenian city which is close to border. If in 2022 it was Jermuk, next time it could be Goris (9 km from border) or toward Vardenis (15 km from border), located on the shores of Sevan Lake.
The third, and least probable scenario is a full-scale invasion to Armenia and attempt to occupy all or a large chunk of the Vayots Dzor and Sunik provinces of Armenia, the latter of which is in the South of the country and shares a border with Iran. Azerbaijan’s likely goal here would be to connect its mainland to Nakhichevan and to Turkey, while cutting Armenia off from Iran. However, attempting such an offensive would have serious risks of an international reaction, as well as the the possibility of direct military support from Iran, which is not interested in such scenario coming to pass, as it would dramatically decrease its influence in the South Caucasus.
Long-Term Consequences
Along with the aforementioned scenarios, it is important to assess the long-term trends for both countries’ Armed Forces. At present there is a major capability gap between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was exacerbated after the former’s defeat in 2020.
Following its victory, Azerbaijan has sustained a relatively high defence budget, which is planned to reach USD 3.8 Bn in 2024. Baku is still undertaking on defence procurement and advice for military reforms mostly from Israel and Turkey. The arms deals are now mostly kept in secret, but high numbers of cargo aircraft fights between the three indicates that they are continuing at pace. The most recent news in this sphere is Azerbaijan’s selection of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) to upgrade Azerbaijan’s Su-25 combat aircraft, and procurement of a 0.5 metre-resolution remote-sensing satellite and possible procurement of Barak MX air defence system from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). It can be surmised that Azerbaijan continues to fill its stocks with Israeli and Turkish UAVs and loitering munitions, and is continuing to develop its long-range precision-guided strike capability.
In Armenia, there is more of a shift going on, as the 2020 war saw the devastating of its Armed Forces, especially in Air Defence and Artillery domains. The country boosted its military spending twice, and is due to have a defence budget of USD 1.4-1.5 Bn in 2024. Yerevan tried to rely on Russia, its traditional partner, after the Second Karabakh War, signing a contract worth USD 400 M in August 2021, mostly for air defence systems. The contract has still not been fulfilled, which Russia has justified by citing its own needs in Ukraine. This, along with Russia’s aforementioned refusals to fulfil the alliance treaty, has pushed Yerevan to find new partners.
The most significant one at present is India, which according to local media has secured an armament contracts package worth around USD 1 Bn. This includes such major Indian systems as Akash SAMs (with a memorandum of understanding to procure Akash-NG when it is ready), ATAGS 155 mm L52 towed howitzers, MArG 155 155 mm L39 self-propelled howitzers, C-UAV electronic warfare (EW) systems, licensed-produced Konkurs-M anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), and other equipment. Interestingly, Armenia made the decision to switch to NATO calibres, and with the number of pieces of artillery being procured, which by some estimations may exceed 150-160, this is a strategic change. Another new partner is France, which is now open to sell NATO-standard weapons to Armenia. First contracts signed on October 2023 include three Thales Ground Master 200 radars, as well as binoculars and sensors produced by Safran. Additionally, memorandum of understanding was signed with MBDA to start the process of procuring Mistral very short-range surface-to-air missiles.
In terms of overall security prospects, the short-term in particular, but also the mid-term currently very much favours Azerbaijan, which lost less equipment in the 2020 war, and has continued to invest a higher amount than Armenia in defence. On the Armenian side, the prospects could look better over the long term, provided the country manages to retain its sovereignty until then. This is because the country is currently undergoing a boom in economic growth, driven in particular by Armenia’s IT sector, with the country’s GDP growing by 12.6% in 2022, likely reaching 10% in 2023, and looking set to remain high over the coming years. By contrast, Azerbaijan’s economy is stagnating and is heavily dependent on fossil fuel exports. The worldwide trend towards decarbonising economies may begin to strongly affect Azerbaijan’s economy after 2030, which may allow Yerevan to secure some breathing room. However, 2030 remains further away than is comfortable, and as such Armenia would do well to secure itself in the present.
On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by Turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons. After 44 days of the war, on November 9, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities. According to the document, the town of Shushi, the districts of Agdam, Kelbajar and Lachin were handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia. A Russian peacekeeping contingent was deployed along the contact line in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor.
On September 19, 2023 Azerbaijan launched what it called an "anti-terrorist" operation against ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh. The assault lasted 24 hours and ended with Azerbaijani forces gaining full control of the region for the first time since the 1990s war. This led to a vast refugee crisis, with tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing along the narrow mountain road connecting the region to the Republic of Armenia.
Source: https://arka.am/en/news/politics/putin_on_yerevan_s_refusal_to_compromise_in_karabakh_issue/
“When Nikol Pashinyan was in the opposition and was leading the movement he created—which everyone knew was connected to the Soros Foundation—the slogan of his movement was ‘Exit’: exit the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union. With this slogan, he brought crowds to the streets, demanded his election as prime minister (at the time the prime minister is elected by the parliament), while announcing that if he weren’t elected he will he will make the people stand up,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian Izvestia daily newsspaer, adding that “this was democracy at its best display.”
Such an overt attack on Pashinyan is unprecedented from the Russian leaders, who have expressed dismay at Pashinyan and his government’s policies of courting the West. With an upcoming meeting between Pashinyan and the U.S. Secretary of State and the European Commission president scheduled for April 4, Moscow – and Baku – have voiced their concerns, and accused the West of sowing instability in the region.
Pashinyan and his allies have also fueled the flames with, primarily, Parliament Speaker Alan Simonyan continuously making anti-Russia declarations, including calling for the ouster of Russian border guards from Armenia. Pashinyan has also threatened to leave the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, saying the organization did not fulfill its obligations toward Armenia when Azerbaijan invaded sovereign territories in Armenia proper.
Opposition forces have accused Pashinyan of having ties to the infamous Soros Foundation, which is often seen as a force of imposing Western values on burgeoning democracies around the world.
“After becoming the Prime Minister, I remember very well, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin met with him several times, emphasizing in every way that we will not be guided by some previous [experience], but by how exactly the leadership of Armenia will build relations with Russia. In response, Nikol Pashinyan said that both the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union are fundamental organizations for Armenia, for the development of its economy, for preventing its isolation in the South Caucasus,” Lavrov explained to Izvestia. He explained that relations between Yerevan and Moscow were advancing and developing based on Pashinyan’s pledges of support for the CSTO and EU, until 2020, when “the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared up.”
Lavrov added that Pashinyan turned to Putin, as ally and a member of the CSTO. Russia’s top diplomat said that Putin, at the time, “was negotiating—literally nightly, tirelessly, and sparing no effort—with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop this war.” Lavrov said that after the signing of the now-infamous November 9, 2020 agreement, the European Union was taking steps to “draw Armenians and Azerbaijanis to its side, with Pashing as the main supporter of the idea to work on a platform with the EU and the U.S.”
“They [Armenia] went there on a regular basis—to the detriment of the meetings that were planned in the territory of the Russian Federation,” Lavrov added.
According to Lavrov, when in Prague in 2022, at the European Political Community Summit, which he called an “invention” by French President Emmanuel Macron, they signed a document with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, in the presence of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, “No one notified us,” Lavrov added.
“Then Putin told Pashinyan during a subsequent meeting: ‘We were surprised that you made that decision.’ There were no explanations, as Pashinyan always asked us not to forget that in parallel with the efforts of the last three years, the issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be somehow resolved, and we were doing it,” the Russian foreign minister explained. Lavrov explained that, after signing the agreement in Prague to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, Pashinyan blamed Putin for abandoning the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“For God’s sake,” Lavrov exclaimed, “it was you [Pashinyan] who decided that they are not citizens or claim some kind of citizenship of Azerbaijan.”
According to the Russian foreign minister, he had gotten a sense from Pashinyan that his government was convinced that an alliance with Russia – that includes CSTO and EU membership—was in the best interests of Armenia and the region.
“Howver, now Armenian officials, both in the Security Council and in the parliament, directly are saying that ‘we should rely more on the European Union,’ that the CSTO allegedly has not fulfilled its obligations to the republic. That is, in essence, the full circle—the leadership of Armenia has begun to express the same thought, with which Pashinyan created his ‘Exit’ movement,” Lavrov said.
“I am convinced that this does not correspond to our and Armenian people’s interests, from the point of view of historical friendly ties with Armenians, the huge Armenian diaspora living in Russia, and stability in the South Caucasus,” Lavrov said. “The objective of those who are now luring the leadership of Armenia to the side of the West is clear: to not allow stability in the South Caucasus, to try to turn this region into a zone of their dominance, as the West is doing in Central Asia and in many other parts of our shared continent,” Lavrov concluded.
"An agreement has been reached on the withdrawal of the remaining units and servicemen of the Armenian armed forces ... and on the dissolution and complete disarmament of the armed formations of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army," the Armenian separatist authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement.
This announcement is a decisive victory for Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, who has made the reunification of his country a priority. Separated from Armenia and attached to Azerbaijan in 1921 by Stalin, the predominantly Armenian mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has been a point of permanent tension between the two former Soviet republics since the collapse of the USSR. In 1991, the territory declared itself the independent Republic of Artsakh but was never recognised by the international community. Then, in 1994, Armenia won the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, resulting in the de facto independence of the Republic of Artsakh which Azerbaijan refused to accept.
In the intervening years, the tables have turned, says Jean Radvanyi, geographer and professor emeritus at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). Thanks to significant revenues from oil and natural gas, "Baku has taken advantage of the situation to rearm, with the support of allies such as Turkey, and the balance of power has continued to evolve", says Radvanyi. This role reversal gave Azerbaijan the confidence to launch the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, which saw Baku's forces overpower the Armenian military.
In the wake of this defeat, Armenia was forced to cede territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. The ceasefire stipulated the presence of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers tasked with guaranteeing the safety of the Armenians but this measure failed to stop regular armed skirmishes on the border. Taking advantage of a divided Armenia, Azerbaijan then launched the second phase of its plan: a war of attrition designed to cut off the enclave's 120,000 or so Armenians. Despite the presence of the Russian peacekeepers, beginning in December 2022, Azerbaijan blockaded the Lachin corridor, a narrow mountain road that links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh. It wasn't until September 18 – just one day before the offensive – that Red Cross trucks carrying food and medicine gained access to Nagorno-Karabakh.
In both the first and second Nagorno-Karabakh wars, Azerbaijan received support from Turkey. On Tuesday, a Turkish defence ministry official said the country is using "all means", including military training and modernisation, to support its close ally Azerbaijan but it did not play a direct role in Baku's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku's success also appears to be the result of Moscow's weakening regional position. Russia has struggled to maintain its traditional role as policeman of the Caucasus since it launched its offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.
"Since the fall of the USSR, Russia has been the guardian of the region, maintaining a kind of status quo, but Moscow is focused on the conflict in Ukraine, which seems far from over," says Lukas Aubin, associate researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS).
What’s more, Russia has become much more dependent on Azerbaijan. The country serves as a corridor between Iran and Russia, allowing for the transfer of military supplies for the war in Ukraine and is one of the countries that enables Russia to circumvent Western sanctions. Finally, Moscow's support for Armenia has been steadily waning in recent years. Elected in 2018, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has edged away from Russia and turned to the West for security guarantees. For instance, in November 2022, Pashinyan refused to sign the final declaration of the summit of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). This signalled Armenia's growing resentment at Moscow's lack of support for the country.
"Pashinyan is pursuing a pro-Western policy, which was not necessarily the case at the outset, and which irritates Moscow," says Laurent Leylekian, a South Caucasus specialist and political analyst. "Armenia ratified the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court to protect the Armenian minority in Nagorno-Karabakh."
This process began at the end of 2022, but ended, coincidentally, a few days after the announcement of the ICC's arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin – at a time when Putin wanted to sully the ICC's credibility, Armenia was legitimising it. Since then, Pashinyan has multiplied acts of defiance towards the Russian president. In early September, Armenia announced humanitarian aid to Ukraine and undertook a joint military exercise with the United States, which began on September 11. In response, Moscow responded by summoning the Armenian ambassador and denouncing the measures as "unfriendly".
‘It's death or exile that awaits the Armenians’
A Western response is yet to materialise. But here again, the international context is working in Azerbaijan's favour. In January, the European Union signed a far-reaching natural gas import agreement with Baku, to reduce dependence on Russian supplies. A few months later, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, travelled to Baku to announce a new agreement to double gas imports from Azerbaijan. In an article published in Le Monde, some fifty French lawmakers criticised a project that would once again place Europeans "in a situation of new dependence on a state with bellicose aspirations".
"The West has always been rather hypocritical in this matter, preferring to negotiate gas and oil with Baku rather than genuinely support the Armenians", says Radvanyi. As Azerbaijan now enters negotiations with Armenian separatists from a position of considerable strength, the power asymmetry could spell danger for both the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia itself. “The (ethnic) Armenian leaders of secessionist Karabakh have long refused to acknowledge that this territory belongs to Azerbaijan,” says Radvanyi, for whom the power shift on the ground could lead to a “solution” to the long-lasting standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh. “I hope this solution will ensure the status of the Karabakh Armenians,” he adds.
But other experts envisage much gloomier scenarios. "It's death or exile that awaits the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh because it's impossible for an Armenian to live in a country where racist anti-Armenian hatred is the raison d'être," says Leylekian. Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, an Armenian ambassador warned of "looming ethnic cleansing" in Nagorno-Karabakh. "Civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh are trapped and they do not have a way to evacuate since Azerbaijan continues to block the only lifeline connecting with Armenia," he said.
Another concern relates to the integrity of Armenian territory, as Nagorno-Karabakh could lose its role as a buffer zone between the two enemies of the Caucasus. "There's every reason to be worried. If this buffer zone were to disappear, Azerbaijan's ambitions could be even more pronounced," says Aubin. "Without Russian support and frank and massive support from the West, it's hard to see the Armenian army being in a position to resist.” In contrast with this, Azerbaijan's presidential foreign policy advisor Hikmet Hajiyev said Wednesday that the country aimed to "peacefully reintegrate" Armenians living in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh and that it supports a "normalisation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan".
“The responsibility for such a development of events will fall entirely on Azerbaijan, which has adopted the policy of ethnic cleansing, and on the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation in Nagorno-Karabakh”.
“I am the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia. Therefore, I lead the independence defence movement […] the future of Armenia depends on one person and that one person is me.”
Source:https://southfront.press/pashinyan-attempts-to-blame-russia-for-the-situation-he-helped-create-in-nagorno-karabakh/
More than 30 years of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is drawing to a close, and Armenia is the loser. On September 19, following the death of four soldiers and two civilians, Azerbaijan pushed aggressively to control Nogorno-Karabakh, and the next day the Armenian forces agreed to lay down their arms in the Armenian majority enclave. Azerbaijan previously had waged a war of attrition to cut off supplies to the 120,000 Armenians. Despite Russian peacekeepers being stationed there since December 2022 tasked with keeping the Lachin corridor open, Azerbaijan blockaded the narrow mountain road which links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh. On September 18, Red Cross trucks carrying food and medicine finally gained access to Nagorno-Karabakh.
“An agreement has been reached on the withdrawal of the remaining units and servicemen of the Armenian armed forces … and on the dissolution and complete disarmament of the armed formations of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army,” the Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement.Europe’s insatiable demand for energy is in part supplied by Azerbaijan’s gas and oil resources. In January, the EU signed a natural gas import agreement with Azerbaijan, as the EU moved away from Russian supplies. Within months, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, announced a new agreement to double gas imports from Azerbaijan while visiting Baku. In response to the new agreement, about 50 French legislators denounced the move that would place Europeans dependent on a state with war-like aspirations, referring to Azerbaijan’s aggression against the Armenians. Energy analysts have pointed to the West’s hypocrisy in the conflict, as they negotiate gas and oil at the expense of the Armenians. Azerbaijan saw their chance to finish off a decades-long dispute with Armenia as the West turns to Baku for oil, and turns away from Russia. In the middle of the conflict is Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenian since 2018.
He faced intense domestic pressure in 2020 after he agreed to a Russian-brokered ceasefire that ended a 44-day war between ethnic Armenian, and Azerbaijani forces who had achieved victory, after taking back a third of the breakaway territory, and an additional seven surrounding districts. Pashinyan had faced calls to resign in 2020, as angry crowds protested in the capital Yerevan after the defeat then, and he faced thousands of protesters in Yerevan on Wednesday asking him again to resign, after viewing the surrender of the breakaway region as a final humiliating defeat. In the past, Pashinyan reversed his position and recognized that Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan and gave up on his previous claim. However, he demanded that Azerbaijan agree to protect the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians, but Azerbaijan refused.
Pashinyan is pursuing a pro-Western policy, and in early September, Armenia announced humanitarian aid to Ukraine and undertook a joint military exercise with the US, which began on September 11. Pashinyan’s critics have said he has moved towards the US and NATO, and away from his former alliance with Russia, which is a neighbor and has peacekeeping forces in the area. The Armenian people look at results, and have seen Pashinyan’s failures mounting up, while they have seen a lack of any American involvement in their conflict, which leaves them wondering what is driving Pashinyan’s decision to go West, when the US has not helped Armenia other than bread crumbs in humanitarian aid, and the EU are depending on Azerbaijan.
Armenia ceded territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan after the 2020 defeat, and 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were placed to guarantee the safety of the Armenians as stipulated in the ceasefire, but despite their presence armed skirmishes continued on the border. Washington provides security assistance to Azerbaijan through a presidential waiver to Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. US ally Israel is Azerbaijan’s principal supplier of weapons. The Azerbaijani army is trained by the Turkish military, another US-NATO ally. Despite having an awful human rights record, Azerbaijan is a strategic partner for the West.
The US is not allied to Armenia, but has diplomatic relations, although Washington is not legally bound to Yerevan by any bilateral or multilateral security agreements. Experts are left wondering: why is Pashinyan moving away from Moscow, when Washington has never moved towards Yerevan? Are there secret promises from the US only Pashinyan knows about? Will a coup unfold in Yerevan to remove Pashinyan before he can reveal his motives?
In 1921, Stalin separated the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia, and attached it to Azerbaijan, and this became a permanent tension between the two. During the USSR collapse in 1991, the separatist Republic of Artsakh declared independence from Azerbaijan; however, it was not internationally recognized. In 1994, Armenia won the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, resulting in the de facto independence of the Republic of Artsakh, but Azerbaijan refused to acknowledge it.
The Armenian defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh is a decisive victory for Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who has made the reunification of his country a priority. Azerbaijan had taken advantage of the significant revenues from oil and gas to build up their military arsenal from Turkey, and this turned the tide in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. In the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, Azerbaijan’s forces overpowered the Armenian military in the conflict which Baku had launched with the support of Turkey.
In March 2014, the US sponsored Radical Islamic terrorists crossed from Turkey into the Armenian village of Kessab, Syria. They raped, killed, and occupied the village for three months during which every home and business was destroyed. In April 2014, Ahmed Jarba, the president of the political wing of the US sponsored Free Syrian Army visited Kessab to congratulate his troops, and then left Syria to sit in the Oval Office with President Obama. After almost a decade, Kessab still sits destroyed and the Armenian residents have almost all gone due to US sanctions preventing any rebuilding, donations, or investment for recovery. A similar fate may await the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has decided to change the country's politics in a move that benefits the West, as evidenced by his recent moves, Eduard Sharmazanov, a former deputy speaker of the country's parliament and member of the board of the Republican Party led by the third President, Serzh Sargsyan.
Last week, Pashinyan, in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, argued that Russia was distancing itself from the South Caucasus and that Russian peacekeepers were not controlling the Lachin corridor, because Russia was either unwilling or unable to do so. The day before, Armenia's Cabinet sent the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to parliament for ratification. This week, Yerevan announced joint exercises with the United States, due to begin on September 11, and Pashinyan's wife Anna Hakobyan visited Kiev, where she took part in a "forum of first ladies and gentlemen" and was photographed with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
"Nikol Pashinyan is changing Armenia's political course," Sharmazanov believes. "This is a continuation of his statements that Russia’s military presence in Armenia is a threat, that Russia wants us to provide them with a corridor (meaning a proposed transportation corridor from the main territory of Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan through the territory of Armenia - TASS) or is forcing us to join the Union State. This is a continuation of the statements about the issue of Lachin (Lachin corridor - TASS) being put under the responsibility of Russia."
He said this was not the first such attempt by the current Armenian authorities. "Back in 2018, US presidential national security advisor John Bolton visited Armenia and said that the Armenian people should abandon their traditions. Among other things, he had in mind the destruction of Armenian-Russian relations. Pashinyan is consistently ruining Armenian-Russian relations," the expert believes. "Pashinyan is taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine, trying to sign an agreement with Azerbaijan with the help of the West. As a result, Armenia sustains territorial losses," Sharmazanov warned.
Hayk Naapetyan, a security expert and retired colonel, agrees. "The plans for ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Armenian-US military exercises, the statements about joining NATO, and the visit of Pashinyan's wife to Kiev indicate that the Armenian leadership has made a final decision to start the process of distancing itself from Russia and leaving the CSTO and the EAEU," he told TASS. According to Naapetyan, in his interview with the Italian newspaper, Pashinyan clearly stated that security cooperation with Russia was the wrong architecture and that the CSTO was not fulfilling its legal obligations.
Russia's position
In Moscow, Pashinyan's statements to the Italian media sparked criticism. A diplomatic source told TASS that the Russian side regarded them "as unacceptable in tone and content and aimed at shifting the responsibility for its own miscalculations and mistakes onto Russia." Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, commenting on the news of the upcoming Eagle Partner 2023 exercises between Armenia and the United States, told TASS that Russia had made its allies in Armenia deftly aware of the fact that their military exercises with the United States were perceived in Moscow with certain concern. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the information about these exercises was worrisome, and Moscow would deeply analyze this situation and keep an eye on what happened next.
Russia also paid attention to the statement made by the Chairman of the European Committee for NATO Development Gunther Fehlinger to the effect that Armenia should join the North Atlantic Alliance. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in this regard that the Armenian people had enough wisdom "not to buy" NATO's attempts to draw their country into the alliance's sphere of influence. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told TASS that the statements made in the EU about Armenia's needing to join NATO were "grand fantasies."
Source: https://tass.com/world/1671299
- Turkey and Azerbaijan are the undisputed leaders in the South Caucasus
- Armenia is vulnerable after losing the 35-year conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
- The Kremlin’s regional influence also took a hit over Yerevan’s swift defeat
The self-styled Republic of Artsakh will soon cease to exist. Unilaterally established by ethnic Armenians in the autonomous Azeri province of Nagorno-Karabakh, it was the linchpin of Russian hegemony in the region. Playing both sides, the Kremlin ensured that it had the final say in regional developments. The one-day war produced two important results: all ethnic Armenians residing in Artsakh were forced to flee, and Azerbaijan is now in full control of its own, internationally recognized territory. This fundamentally alters the security architecture in the geopolitically important South Caucasus region. As the scope for outside mediation will now be defined by Ankara and Baku, there will be no more outside “peace plans.”
Following the cease-fire agreement in 1994, Armenia assumed the role of protector for the Republic of Artsakh, and it retained control of those Azeri territories between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper that it had seized by military force. Although Artsakh was not formally recognized even by Yerevan, it represented a substantial de facto enlargement of the territory of Armenia.
Azerbaijan’s long push to retake Nagorno-Karabakh
Backed by Turkey, Azerbaijan executed its counteroffensive in three stages. The 44-day war in the fall of 2020 resulted in Baku regaining control over a large part of Nagorno-Karabakh and in a rout of the bulk of the Armenian forces from the surrounding areas. Russian intervention prevented a total collapse of the Armenian side, and 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were deployed to ensure continued free passage between Artsakh and Armenia. The second stage was a blockade that made life for the remaining Armenians inside Artsakh very difficult. The third and final stage was the assault on September 19, which ended in swift capitulation by the Armenian forces.
Turkey and Azerbaijan are the unequivocal winners. They will now be able to dictate the conditions for what will follow. The biggest loser in the short term is Armenia. With a population of 2.8 million, it has been forced to accept 100,000 refugees and it lives under the threat of an Azeri invasion. Although both sides have offered to recognize the territorial integrity of the other side, Baku maintains strategic ambiguity by referring to remaining Azeri exclaves inside Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.”
Armenia seeks closer ties to the West
Having long believed it was protected by Russia, Armenia has started currying favor with the West. It has not only reneged on a pledge to host drills of the Russian-led Common Security Treaty Organization. On October 3, it crossed the Rubicon by opting to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. That means that if President Vladimir Putin were to visit Armenia, he would risk being arrested. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded this move as “extremely hostile” and threatened there would be the “most negative consequences.” But the only consequence to date has been that Russian customs is making trouble for imports of Armenian brandy.
Russian peacekeepers exit the region
These moves indicate how much Russia has lost. Its peacekeepers are getting ready to leave Azerbaijan. They were subjected to intermittent shelling of their bases that destroyed equipment and the killing of several Russian soldiers, including a senior Russian commander. No escalation followed. The Kremlin is so dependent on its transport route to Iran that it was forced to accept this humiliation, or risk antagonizing Azerbaijan. Russia has been informed that once its peacekeepers have left Azeri territory, they will not be welcome in Armenia, and it is likely that in addition it will be asked to vacate its remaining bases on Armenian territory.
Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Armenia was home to around 10,000 Russian troops. About half were stationed at the 102nd military base at Gyumri, the second-largest city in Armenia. Located near Turkey, it was the largest Russian military base abroad. Additional garrisons have been at Zvartnots airport and at Erebuni military base. Russian border guards have also patrolled the borders with Turkey and Iran. Given that many of these troops have been sent to the “meat grinder” in Ukraine, it is not clear how many are left. Yet, being called on to leave completely would be a major setback.
A formal peace treaty awaits
The immediate future will be marked by efforts to finalize a formal peace treaty. This process has long been pursued along two tracks, one with Russia and the other with the European Union and the United States. Now it is up to Azerbaijan to decide both the terms of a treaty and where it is to be signed. Given that the Armenian population has been displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, and that both sides have offered to recognize the territorial integrity of the other, there is not much left to talk about. Yet, the outcome is shrouded in uncertainty.
On October 5, the two sides were to meet at Granada, Spain, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel. Although Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did show up, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev did not. In a clear snub to France, and to aspiring Western mediators, he hinted at dissatisfaction with President Macron’s pro-Armenian statements and talk about French arms sales.
A few days later, the two sides were to meet at a summit meeting of the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), held in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. This time President Aliyev showed up, but in a clear snub to Russia, Prime Minister Pashinyan did not.
The likely venue is Georgia. In late 2021, it refused to take part in a 3+3 format, where the three regional powers Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were to meet with the three outside powers Iran, Russia and Turkey. Tbilisi argued that negotiations should be left to the three regional powers. On October 8, 2023, President Aliyev held a meeting in Tbilisi with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. On October 26, 2023, at the 4th Tbilisi Silk Road Forum in Tbilisi, prime ministers from regional powers Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, also in Tbilisi, met and Prime Minister Pashinyan proclaimed a peace deal would be signed “in the coming months.”
Turkey’s role in the dispute
Given that Turkey is now emerging as a regional hegemon, the future will be shaped by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strategic priorities in positioning Turkey as a regional energy hub and in securing its access to markets in Central Asia without passing through Iran. Both highlight relations with Azerbaijan, which in turn means that opening the Zangezur corridor to link Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhichevan exclave, crossing Armenian territory, becomes a Turkish priority.
President Erdogan has played a deliberately opaque game. First, he wanted a seamless corridor that would be beyond Armenian sovereignty. Next, he suggested that Armenian checkpoints would be accepted, and the latest is that a corridor may be drawn to Nakhchivan via Iran (pandering to Tehran’s strong objections to a pan-Turkic corridor). In mid-October, he suggested that “If Armenia honors its commitments, especially the opening of the Zangezur corridor, then Turkey will step-by-step normalize relations.”
What is quite clear is that Russia will have no further role to play. According to the trilateral agreement that was signed in 2020, envisioning an opening of Zangezur, it was stipulated that Russian border guards would be in control. In a recent statement, however, Prime Minister Pashinyan stated that “no third power should have control over any territory of Armenia.”
Georgia in contrast will play a vital role. Apart from being a possible venue for peace talks, it is of great strategic relevance to Russia. As the Ukrainian armed forces are pushing the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of its bases on Crimea, the Kremlin needs to find an alternative. Given that its port at Novorossiysk is too small, it is looking at a port in Abkhazia, which is a de facto Russian vassal state. While Georgia cries foul in public, the current government may play along.
Scenarios
Three very different scenarios may play out. One is that Azerbaijan acts on its implied threats and takes further military action against Armenia. It has already launched a series of cross-border attacks that have resulted in the occupation of about 215 square kilometers of Armenian land. The rhetoric on “Western Azerbaijan” is driven by the legacy of eight exclaves inside Armenia that, during Soviet times, were populated by ethnic Azeris. Two of those – Yukhari Askipara and Barkhudari – are located on the Yerevan-Tbilisi highway, which could be cut off.
What makes this scenario unlikely is that it would lead to powerful reactions from the West. The United States has sent strong signals warning against an invasion of Armenia, and Baku must consider the heavy investment it has made in being a reliable supplier of energy to Europe. The purpose in keeping the threat alive is to add pressure on the government in Yerevan.
A radically different scenario envisions a decisive intervention by the EU and the U.S. to bring the region closer to the West. The track record of such ambitions has not been good. When Brussels launched its European Neighborhood Policy, Georgia was the only country in the South Caucasus to show interest. Azerbaijan preferred to tread its own middle road and Armenia felt safe with Russia. Since then, the increasingly pro-Russian Georgian government has moved away from the EU. When Moldova and Ukraine were offered candidate status for membership, Georgia was put on hold.
This is where Armenia could – paradoxically – emerge as a winner out of the debacle in Nagorno-Karabakh. Brussels could decide to upgrade the Armenian Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement to the level of association agreements it has awarded Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It is delivering humanitarian support and in talks about macro-financial assistance similar to what it offers Moldova and Ukraine.
The big divide will be the 2024 parliamentary elections in Georgia. If the opposition wins, it may join hands with Armenia in a bid to approach the West, and if both Armenia and Georgia can be brought into the Western community, it will shine a light on the continuing Russian occupation of the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Likeliest: Armenia’s position is weakened
While both these scenarios are possible, the likeliest is that the incumbent Georgian government succeeds in winning the upcoming elections. All the young Russians who have fled there to avoid being sent to the war in Ukraine have brought with them both financial resources and links back to Russia. It is also important that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban paid a recent visit to Tbilisi to show support from within the EU. This axis of authoritarian leaders will ensure that Russia retains at least some influence in the South Caucasus, including a green light for a naval base in Abkhazia.
These developments will further weaken the position of Armenia. In the eyes of Brussels, Yerevan’s sudden resolve to make a push for inclusion into the community of the West is undermined by the fact that it remains a member of both the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union. Adding its role in helping Russia circumvent sanctions, Brussels will be hesitant to make any moves that may antagonize Azerbaijan.
Left to its own devices, Armenia will be vulnerable to pressures from Azerbaijan and Turkey that range from vague threats of a full-scale Azeri invasion to ambiguous statements from Turkey about the Zangezur corridor. The fact that Turkey and Azerbaijan recently held military drills near Armenia and that they have already begun work on a gas pipeline from Turkey to Nakhchivan suggests that the goal remains to force Armenia into accepting a de facto loss of sovereignty over its southern border.
Despite Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s claims that “the loser is only he who thinks himself defeated,” the facts are there.
The peace deal as mentioned was brokered by Russia, and it was the least it could do to salvage a situation that was becoming more for Yerevan with each passing day. The entire situation is such:
- Back in 2018, the pro-Western coup took place in Armenia, which saw the government fall and Nikol Pashinyan, a Soros-funded ‘democratic’ activist back then, being released from prison and becoming the Prime Minister.
- In 2018, and continuing in the future, he proved one thing – he has no actual authority, as he had to join citizens’ protests to attempt and enforce his political plans, and they were ineffective in most areas.
- One area where they were quite effective, however, was spreading anti-Russian hysteria, and for two years Armenia’s main foreign and internal policy has been focused on distancing itself from Russia, which continues being its only real ally and the guarantor of the Armenian statehood.
In Nagorno-Karabakh, there was a sort of testing of the waters in 2016 when a more open conflict began, shortly and then ended. In 2018, when Armenia started distancing itself, willingly, from Russia, there were a few small-scale clashes. In July 2020, heavier clashes took place, likely as a way for Azerbaijan to see what Armenia would do and if Russia would flinch, at all. It didn’t. As a result of two years of anti-Russian policy, Azerbaijan ultimately began its offensive on September 27th, and approximately a month and a half later, the fighting ended with Baku as the victor, and Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan looking for a scapegoat to blame for the disgrace.
Throughout the approximately 1.5 months of war, Armenia tried a very questionable bid at “multipolarity” looking to get help from any direction, all the while not attempting to restore any relations with Moscow. Essentially, no significant forces, equipment or hardware were actually deployed from Armenia to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh. Whatever forces were presented in the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh fought, with some limited support from “mainland Armenia.” As per official information, no regular Armenian troops from the armed forces entered Nagorno-Karabakh to fight. What was there instead of that? Livestreams of Nikol Pashinyan in Facebook and multiple PR statement claiming about victorious counter-attacks of Armenian forces. In comparison to actions of the Armenian prime minister, the Artsakh President even went to the frontline for a day or two to promote protecting the motherland. The lack of any concrete actions, as well as any adequate actions was covered by a very wide and loud media campaign, calling for other countries to recognize Artsakh as an independent country, hoping that it would happen, and for a while there was a minor hope from France (presented by Yerevan as the large victory of the ‘democratic government’). It didn’t happen, but also Armenia didn’t recognize Artsakh as independent and didn’t undertake any tangible actions at all, since “reunification” would be quite difficult, especially if the OSCE or UN Peacekeepers are present.
This all led to Armenia ultimately losing Nagorno-Karabakh, it was certain as soon as Azerbaijan’s forces, with some help from Turkey and a few thousand Syrian militants captured a vital road, and managed to encircle the Artsakh forces. Even the Artsakh president admitted that Shusha was actually lost on November 7th, or rather that it was inevitable for it to fall. News of Shusha falling came on November 9th. The peace deal, which was a “very, very difficult decision” as per Pashinyan is a fact, and he’s now struggling to find whom to blame. He’s blaming other officials, other countries for not recognizing Artsakh as an independent country, also the military for not doing enough. Armenians are blaming Russia for not stepping in and fighting their war for them, while less than 2 years earlier, banners with “Russia go home and never return” were commonplace.
The entire situation is such: Russian peacekeepers will preserve the situation right now. As long as the Russian military is there, the Armenians remaining in the area of the Russian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh are safe. However, in the event of the further deterioration of the Russian-Armenian relations these peacekeepers could be withdrawn. For example, in the event of Armenian attacks on Azerbaijani forces, it is unlikely that Russia decide to simply send troops and retake the region back for Armenia’s sake. On the other hand, Azerbaijan cannot capture the entire region as long as the Russians are there. Nonetheless, from the military and political point of view, Baku also made gains. The control of Shusha and the promised transport link between the mainland and Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through Armenia and under the supervision of Russian border guards are important achievements.
In short, what is the short-term result: It seems that the pro-Western government of Armenia intentionally
failed the war and lost the unrecognized territory that by the fact of
its existence undermined the pro-NATO, EU integration of Armenia.
Azerbaijan received its lost territories back, and it is quite
satisfied, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev even made fun of
Pashinyan, in his speech following the “victorious peace deal.”
Turkey strengthened its position in the Caucasus and the Turkic world, as a trustworthy ally that can help its own. Russia once again demonstrated that it is protector of the Armenians, and secured the existence of Armenia as the state, it guaranteed that no other losses were made, despite Armenia entirely failing to adequately handle the situation. And Russia didn’t specifically need to do it, since Moscow has a strong foothold much further south – in Syria, and the military base in Armenia as the factor of Russia’s “security perimeter” has no more strategic importance. Thanks to actions of the pro-Western, globalist, neo-liberal-oriented government, the Armenians have faced and will face even more hard times. There will be more chaos, disappointment in the government, blaming of the Russians, and depending on how successful the propaganda is, the blame could entirely be shifted on the “traitorous” Moscow and the older generation of leadership.
Once again, the history demonstrated that color revolutions, the seizure of power by supporters of NATO and the circle of globalists, generally, leads only to the chaos and the destruction of the statehood and widespread chaos. For example, when Pashinyan seized power in 2018, he was congratulated by another famous ‘democratic’ activist – the leader of the pro-Western/neo-liberal Russian opposition, Alexey Navalny. Fortunately for Russia, in the current conditions such persons as Pashinyan and Navalny have no chances to come to power in the country and lost some Russian territory to foreign forces.
“Pashinyan has been elected prime minister. I congratulate the Armenian people for preventing the usurpation of power in the same hands. Great achievement. I hope Armenia will succeed. Well, everyone in Russia will only be happy with the emergence of a successfully developing neighbor.”
Пашинян избран премьер-министром. Поздравляю армянский народ с тем, что они предотвратили узурпацию власти в одних руках. Грандиозное достижение. Надеюсь, у Армении всё получится. Ну а всем в России будет только хорошо от появления успешно развивающегося соседа.
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) May 8, 2018
Below is what Pashinyan commented, following the signing, and he considered that, he really wasn’t to blame. He reportedly even left Armenia, because he can’t face responsibility for his failures.
“I was not the initiator of the truce,” he said, then who was?
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that he made a decision to end the war in Karabakh under pressure from the country’s military leadership.
“The army said that we must stop, because we have certain problems, the prospects for solving them are not clear, and the resource has been exhausted. The military resource was not effective in everything. Those who fought on the frontline had no replacement … On the frontline there were people who had not been replaced for a month in a row,” Pashinyan said in his Facebook video speech.
The Prime Minister of Armenia specified that the ceasefire had not been signed earlier, because at the end of September it assumed the transfer of seven regions around Nagorno-Karabakh.
“And we could not take such a step, because we believed that we could all do so that we were not interested in ceasefire, but could impose it on the enemy. Unfortunately, this did not happen,” Pashinyan said.
The country had problems with the mobilization system, and civilians were not ready to fully participate in hostilities, the prime minister said. Pashinyan also pointed to a number of problems in the troops, in particular, about several dozen cases when the population of specific regions did not allow the military to redeploy troops, the low level of combat capability of the militias and cases of desertion. It is not known exactly where Pashinyan is now. Earlier there were rumors that he hastily left the country. At night, the protesters, dissatisfied with the surrender of Artsakh, broke into the government building and the prime minister’s residence. They smashed furniture and appliances, and took away some of the prime minister’s personal belongings. Meanwhile, Armenian President Armen Sarkisian claimed that he learned about the agreement on Karabakh from the media.
“Taking into account the deep concern of a large mass of people due to the current situation, I am immediately initiating political consultations in order to quickly agree on decisions arising from our agenda for protecting national interests,” the president said.
The head of Karabakh Arayik Harutyunyan said that the Armenian troops completely lost control over the city of Shusha on November 7. He added that history will appreciate the decision that was made yesterday, but they had to go for it.
“If the hostilities continued at the same pace, we would have lost all Artsakh in a matter of days. <..> There were no more resources to continue the struggle,” Harutyunyan said.
According to him, the fighting took place on the outskirts of Stepanakert, at a distance of two to three kilometers from the city.
“The drones inflicted heavy losses on the Karabakh Defense Army. The question is why the Armenian army did not create similar weapons,” Arayik Harutyunyan stated.
At the same time, it became known that the Secretary of the Security Council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Samvel Babayan announced the termination of his powers after the adoption of a joint statement of the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan and Armenia on a ceasefire.
“Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) is the center of the Armenian statehood, a symbol of the Armenians, and we were obliged to preserve the dignity of the Armenians. Realizing this, we have gone through all the stages of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict, sacrificing thousands of lives and suffering from hardships for the sake of this land, for the right to a dignified life on this land. Today, when the leaders of the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Artsakh questioned the existence of the Armenians by one conspiratorial decision, and then made false statements about reality, the question arises – who authorized you in a democratic country without the consent of the people, without consultations, to surrender us,” Babayan wrote on your Facebook page.
It should be reminded that Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the mediation of Russia, agreed to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh from midnight on November 10. After this news, mass disturbances began in Yerevan. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of the city, shouting curses at the Prime Minister. On the eve of 17 opposition parties in Armenia demanded the voluntary resignation of Pashinyan. If the patriotic forces do not take power in Armenia and the globalist-controlled government led by Pashinyan or Pashinyan-like leader remains in power, the destruction of the Armenian statehood will continue in the coming years. At some moment, this process could become irreversible.
Source: https://newcoldwar.org/treason-and-incompetence-how-soros-trained-armenian-government-lost-karabakh-war/The unprecedented activity of the United States in Armenia in the last years of the presidency of Barack Obama led to the revolution of 2018, as a result of which the journalist Nikol Pashinyan came to power.
Armenia is a strategic ally of Russia in Transcaucasia, with which we have had fraternal relations for many centuries. But all this glorious past and allied relations did not become an obstacle to the implementation of the standard "velvet revolutionary package", which was previously implemented in Georgia, Ukraine and a number of other countries.
Armenian media outlets note that a number of local NGOs are helping the Americans expand their network of agents in the Republic, the main one being the open Society Armenia Foundation, or the Soros Foundation. Most recently, a scandal broke out between the head of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, and the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, the main topic of which was the activities of the notorious Soros in Armenia. Simonyan openly annouced the claims that accumulated in Russia after Pashinyan came to power regarding the dominance of former NGO activists in the state apparatus and the harm they cause to Armenian-Russian relations.
In particular, Simonyan noted: "you have flooded the country with anti-Russian NGOs that teach young people on your territory how to overthrow the government in Russia. You have become a springboard for anti-Russian forces in the Caucasus." In response to Simonyan's verbal attack, Pashinyan in an interview with Russian RBC noted that these organizations were created during the reign of Robert Kocharian, whom Russia trusted. "NGOs that are considered hostile to Russia have been operating in Armenia since the times of the presidents, whose loyalty in Russia no one doubted."
"The question is not about Soros itself, it has become a household word. But I can see what's going on here. Imposing values on the younger generation, which uproot the component that is a feature of our identity - family, faith. There are conversations about the eternity or non-eternity of the allies, the demonization of some countries. This was previously done at the level of marginal, non-governmental organizations, but now all this group has joined the government. I didn't even know that Soros had an office in Armenia. They were creeping into the country. They were a marginal organization that did not influence any process, and now they are very active. I was surprised that they had grown so strong in recent years" - said the second President of Armenia.
Indeed, if one looks at the history of the Soros Foundation's formation and activities in Armenia, it falls precisely during Kocharian's presidency, but the placement of people from this structure in the state apparatus already falls on the last two years, i.e. the period of Pashinyan's leadership of the Republic. If at the beginning of his Premiership Pashinyan appointed representatives of the former government to high positions in the security sphere, and assigned more socio-economic block to his team, then after the parliamentary elections in December 2018 and the consolidation of their positions, the appointment of Soros members "walking with him" became widespread. These groups of NGO representatives, activists and media professionals were the organizers of anti-Russian actions in front of the Russian Embassy in Yerevan. They received the skills of "velvet" revolutionaries in the United States and Europe, which were used during the 2018 revolution.
Let us recall that all these groups, and Pashinyan himself, supported Armenia's withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). An instant change of Pashinyan's position concerning integration associations after coming to power looks like a forced step by a country that is surrounded by detractors and whose only patron is Russia. So who are the Soros people in power in Armenia and how widely are they represented in the Government and Parliament?
There is no doubt that Nikol Pashinyan’s irresponsible and unpopular government is to blame for the recent escalations in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Having come to power through a pro-Western color revolution, Pashinyan has strived since 2018 to make Yerevan a NATO proxy state in the Caucasus, exponentially increasing ties between Armenia and countries such as the US and France while creating frictions with Russia.
Unable to achieve any real guarantee of security from his Western partners and adopting a hostile behavior towards Russia, Nikol Pashinyan led Armenia to absolute strategic weakness at a time of new high tensions with Azerbaijan, culminating in the attacks that occurred between 19 and 20 September during Baku’s so-called “anti-terrorist operation”. Cowardly, Pashinyan made it clear that he would not participate in the conflict, almost forcing the Armenians of Artsakh to surrender in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.
More than 120,000 Armenians are now fearing their future in the face of Azerbaijani aggression, without being able to count on their partners in Yerevan to help in the crisis. In practice, Pashinyan “handed over” the lives of his compatriots to an enemy country, putting his own people at risk and showing a lack of concern for the safety of ethnic Armenians. All this to continue following the government’s number one goal, which is to please Western “allies”.
It must be remembered that Pashinyan’s Western “friends” made a real trap for Armenia by mediating the so-called “Prague agreements”. At the time, Yerevan recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty, which was mistakenly seen by the mainstream media as a “step towards peace”. The problem is that the agreement did not establish any real conditions to resolve the dispute over Artsakh, therefore serving to further legitimize Baku’s interest in the region. With Armenia recognizing Azerbaijani territorial integrity, the country was left without any justification to prevent further Azerbaijani aggressions against the ethnic Armenians of Artsakh.
In practice, Pashinyan legitimized Turkish-Azerbaijani expansionism in Nagorno-Karabakh and “authorized” the beginning of ethnic cleansing, abandoning more than 120,000 Armenians. This was the Western intention when promoting such an “agreement”, whose terms, instead of achieving peace, legitimized even more conflicts. This obviously serves Western interests, since in the face of new hostilities, Yerevan, unable to intervene, tends to request help from NATO – exactly as the Armenian Ambassador in Washington did – thus allowing Western troops to arrive in the region. In this scenario, Baku would certainly also request international help, calling the Turks. In the end, the Caucasus would become a NATO zone of influence and the Russian presence in the region would be minimized or even terminated.
Of course, all of this became clear recently, leading to a wave of mass protests and criticism against Pashinyan. In addition, the “Civil Contract” party received the lowest number of votes in five years in the last Council of Elders elections, being supported by only 32% of voters. There is evidently a crisis of legitimacy, and it is possible that the end of the Pashinyan era is a matter of time.
The main problem, however, is that Pashinyan is not an isolated agent. He is just one of the members of the pro-NATO junta that rules today’s Armenia. In addition to him, there are other politicians similarly willing to make Yerevan subordinate to Western plans. For example, the Secretary of the Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, who many analysts see as someone with the possibility of growing politically and becoming the new prime minister, is an even more pro-Western politician than Pashinyan.
Linked to the Soros Foundations, Grigoryan openly says that he will promote Armenia’s integration into NATO, advancing the policies started by Pashinyan. Furthermore, Grigoryan is already notorious for his pro-Western militancy, having even been accused of leaking confidential documents from the CSTO to NATO, which shows his high level of subservience to foreign interests.
So, unfortunately, there is no good expectation about the future of Armenia. The country would need to undergo a radical political change to reverse the catastrophic effects of the 2018 coup. If this does not happen, Yerevan will continue to be governed by pro-Western politicians, and the only point of divergence between them will be on how to be even more obedient to NATO.
Nikol Pashinyan increasingly seems to understand that he will be replaced by someone more “competent”. Not surprisingly, there are rumors that his wife recently started looking for estate in Switzerland and his son is already living in Canada. Unlike the Armenian people of Artsakh, Pashinyan will be able to leave the country with his family, not seeing firsthand the catastrophe he created for his own people.
Euphoria in Washington and Brussels about Armenia’s reorientation towards the West should be welcomed. Armenia attended the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) heads of state and Eurasian Economic Union meetings in Moscow on December 26. Armenia will chair the Eurasian Economic Union in 2024. At the same time, euphoria is premature; to reach the West, Armenia must first leave the east which would be only possible if Russia was militarily defeated by Ukraine. As witnessed by Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine last year, the Kremlin is not a supporter of ‘Brexits’ from its Eurasian sphere of influence.
History and geography constrain a country’s foreign policy and geopolitical orientation. And no more so than in the case of Armenia, which lies in the South Caucasus neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey. Armenia has no common border with its traditional Russian ally. Armenia has aligned with Russia since becoming an independent state following the disintegration of the USSR. A brutal war in 1988-1992 led to Turkey closing Armenia’s western border in 1993 while its eastern border with Azerbaijan lay through occupied territory. After winning the First Karabakh War, Armenia occupied a fifth of Azerbaijani territory which included the symbolically important Karabakh region.
In May 1992, with the war just over, Armenia, Russia, and four Central Asian states – all former Soviet republics – signed the Tashkent Treaty. A year later Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan signed as well but they did not renew their participation in 1999, opting instead to align with Ukraine and Moldova in the pro-Western GUUAM (named after the first letter of its five members) group. A decade later the original six members of the Tashkent Treaty became the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation). Although promoted by Russia as a Eurasian response to NATO this was a misnomer as NATO did not launch its first enlargement in the post-communist era until seven years later. Since then, NATO has enlarged on five further occasions while the CSTO has remained static.
CSTO members joined for diametrically different reasons. Belarus is a Russian satellite state and, like Russia, is xenophobically anti-Western. Four Central Asian states do not feel threatened by their neighbours and have looked to the CSTO to defend their regimes. Armenia built security partnerships with Russia and Iran to counter Turkey and Azerbaijan with whom it had poor relations and occupied territory of Azerbaijan.
Armenia’s pro-Russian security policy was deepened by bilateral military relationships with Russia signed in August 1992 and March 1995. Russia has two military bases in Gyumri and at Yerevan airport. Armenian officers train at Russian military academies and most of Armenia’s military equipment is Russian. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine there were rumoured to be plans to expand the number of Russian bases in Armenia. In February 2021, Armenian Defence Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan raised the possibility of ‘redeploying some military formation of the [102nd] Russian base to the eastern part of Armenia.’ The possible location was the Vardenis region, southeast of Lake Sevan.
In August 2010, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement extending these Russian military bases until 2044. Serj Sargsyan and Robert Kocherian, who have played musical chairs with the positions of president and prime minister and who were dubbed the ‘Karabakh clan,’ are solidly pro-Russian in their foreign policy orientation. Russia’s military involvement in Armenia goes even deeper.
Uniquely in the former USSR, Armenia’s borders are controlled by Russian border guard troops based on a treaty signed in September 1992. Russian border guard troops are based in Gyumri, Armavir, Artashat, Meghri and at Zvartnots airport. Russia’s border guard troops are under the control of the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service whose responsibility is internal Russian security but also stretches to cover the entire former USSR. In the USSR, the border guards came under the control of the KGB. After the ceasefire following the 2020 Second Karabakh War, Russia expanded the presence of FSB border guard troops to five locations in Armenia, including two on the border with Nakhichevan, two on the border with Iran, and one in Tegh.
Russia’s military control of Armenia goes even further. In 2016, Armenia ratified an agreement with Russia to create a joint air-defence system which includes the entirety of Russia’s Air Force’s capabilities, including reconnaissance and surveillance, fighter jets and bomber planes. On the economic front, Russia expanded its control over Armenia stealthily over the course of the last three decades. Armenia’s gas, and nuclear power sectors are controlled by Russia. Nearly as many Armenians live and work in Russia as do in Armenia, sending home remittances that are important for the government budget.
The EU included Armenia alongside five other Soviet republics, in the Eastern Partnership unveiled in 2010. The Kremlin viewed the Eastern Partnership as a threat to its Eurasian sphere of influence and created the CIS Customs Union as its response. After coming back as Russian president in 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin applied pressure on Ukraine and Armenia to not sign Association Agreements with the EU. In 2013, Ukrainians rebelled against President Viktor Yanukovych’s withdrawal from the Association Agreement while Armenians accepted President Sargsyan’s decision to do so. Armenia joined the Eurasian Economic Union, as the CIS Customs Union had been renamed.
Nikol Pashinyan came to power in 2018 following a popular revolt against corruption and undemocratic practices undertaken by the ‘Karabakh clan’ which dominated Armenian politics since the early 1990s. Pashinyan has no love for the CSTO because it failed to intervene in the 2020 Second Karabakh War. Russia claimed there was no military action on Armenian territory and the CSTO did not intervene because the war was fought on territory internationally recognised as Azerbaijani. Pashinyan also condemned Russian peacekeeping forces for not intervening on Armenia’s side during the short-lived Azerbaijani retaking of Karabakh earlier this year.
Pashinyan has boycotted recent CSTO summit showing how Armenia has become a de facto passive member. Nevertheless, despite the prime minister’s criticism, Armenian government officials have been at pains to say that there are no plans to withdraw from the CSTO or close Russian military bases. The only discernible difference has been Armenia’s interest in balancing countries with whom it conducts military cooperation. Nevertheless, this has been on a small scale, the Eagle Partner peacekeeping training exercise held in Armenia in September included only 85 U.S. and 175 Armenian soldiers.
Pashinyan and other Armenian officials have never raised the question of withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union. In 2016, the UK held a Brexit referendum using article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union; the charter of the Eurasian Economic Union does not include such a mechanism. Countries can only be in one customs union. In 2014, Ukraine signed the Association Agreement and is part of the EU customs union. Armenia cannot re-join the path to signing an Association Agreement until it leaves the customs zone of the Eurasian Economic Union which it joined in January 2015.
Washington and Brussels should encourage Armenia to pursue a more balanced multi-vector foreign policy. This may gradually reduce Russia’s influence in Armenia. With the decline of the ‘Karabakh clan’ following the formerly occupied territories returning to Azerbaijani sovereignty, Russia has lost its main source of influence in Armenia. While Pashinyan’s heart would like to steer Armenia towards Europe, his head understands realities on the ground. There is no easy mechanism for Armenia to withdraw from the CSTO or Eurasian Economic Union – even if the Kremlin were to accept this step, which is unlikely. It is also unclear what would be the Kremlin’s response if Armenia unilaterally abrogated Russian military bases.
Ironically, Armenia’s best chance of moving west is if the east is militarily defeated by Ukraine. As Russian history has shown in the mid nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Russian leaders have traditionally not survived the domestic turmoil brought about by military failures.
ON the day Azerbaijan’s military sliced through the defences of an ethnic Armenian redoubt on Sept 19, American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division had just finished a training mission in nearby Armenia, a long-time ally of Russia that has been trying to reduce its nearly total dependence on Moscow for its security. The Americans unfurled a banner made up of the flags of the United States and Armenia, posed for photographs – and then left the country.
At the same time, nearly 2,000 Russian “peacekeepers” were dealing with the mayhem unleashed by their earlier failure to keep the peace in the contested area, Nagorno-Karabakh, recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan. The timing of the US soldiers’ rapid exit at the end of their training work – carried out under the intimidating name Eagle Partner but involving only 85 soldiers – had been scheduled for months. Yet, coinciding as it did with the host country’s greatest moment of need, it highlighted an inescapable reality for Armenia: While it might want to reduce its reliance on an untrustworthy Russian ally that, preoccupied by the war in Ukraine, did nothing to prevent September’s debacle, the West offers no plausible alternative.
Later, the defeated ethnic Armenian government of Nagorno-Karabakh formally dissolved itself and told residents they had no choice but to leave or to live under Azerbaijani rule, acknowledging a new reality enabled by Russian passivity and unhindered by Washington. The Biden administration rushed out two senior officials to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to offer comfort to Armenia’s embattled prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan. But it has so far resisted placing sanctions on Azerbaijan for a military assault that the State Department previously said it would not countenance.“We feel very alone and abandoned,” said Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Pashinyan’s former foreign minister.
That is not a good position to be in for a country in the South Caucasus, a volatile region of the former Soviet Union where the destiny of small nations has for centuries been determined by the interests and ambitions of outside powers. “Mentally, we live in Europe, but geographically, we live in a very different place,” said Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Institute, a research group in Yerevan. “Our neighbors are not Switzerland and Luxembourg, but Turkiye, Iran and Azerbaijan.”
This tough and predominantly Muslim neighbourhood has meant that Armenia, intensely proud of its history as one of the world’s oldest Christian civilisations, has traditionally looked to Russia for protection, particularly since the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, a perennial enemy of the Russian Empire. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia in 1992 joined a Russian-led military alliance offering “collective security” and expanded close economic ties with Russia forged during the Soviet era. There are, by some estimates, more Armenians living in Russia than in their home country, which gets two-thirds of its energy from Russia.
These intimate bonds, however, have now frayed so badly that some supporters of Pashinyan fear that Russia wants to capitalise on public anger and daily protests in Yerevan over the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh to try to topple the Armenian leader for having let US troops in to help train his army. The training mission was small and lasted just a few days, but that, along with other outreach to the West by Pashinyan – including a push to ratify a treaty that would make Russian President Vladimir Putin liable for arrest on suspicion of war crimes under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court should he visit Armenia – infuriated Moscow.
“They blew it out of all proportion,” said Mnatsakanyan, because “in their view, you are either their stooge or an American stooge”. Armenia, he said, never had any intention of “jumping to America”. “That is childish,” he added. “Playing simplistic geopolitical games, allowing ourselves to be the small change in global competition, is going to be at our cost.”
But the cost for Armenia, whatever its intentions, has already been high and could get much higher if, as many fear, Azerbaijan, with support from Turkiye and a wink and a nod from a distracted Russia, expands its ambitions and tries to snatch a chunk of Armenian territory to open up a land corridor to Nakhchivan, a patch of Azerbaijani territory inside Armenia’s borders. Benyamin Poghosyan, the former head of the Armenian Defence Ministry’s research unit, said Azerbaijan’s conquest after more than three decades of on-off war in Nagorno-Karabakh “is not the end; it is just the start of another never-ending story”.
Many Armenians blame Russian inaction for the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, accusing Moscow of abandoning its small ally in pursuit of bigger economic and diplomatic opportunities offered by Turkiye and Azerbaijan. That Russia would realign its priorities in favour of a former Soviet satrap like Azerbaijan or Turkiye, which it has long viewed as an impertinent interloper into former Soviet lands, is a sign of how much the war in Ukraine has rearranged and shrunk Russia’s horizons.
“Azerbaijan and Turkiye suddenly became a lot more important to Russia than we are because of the war in Ukraine,” Poghosyan said. “Russia is busy in Ukraine, and it doesn’t have a lot of interest in us.”
In a bitter speech last weekend to mark Armenia’s independence day, Pashinyan said responsibility for the suffering of tens of thousands of terrified ethnic Armenians fleeing their conquered enclave lies “entirely” with Azerbaijan and “on the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation in Nagorno-Karabakh”. Armenia, he added, “has never betrayed its allies”, but “the security systems and allies we have relied on for many years have set a task to demonstrate our vulnerabilities and justify the impossibility of the Armenian people to have an independent state”.
For some of the more than 75,000 ethnic Armenians who had fled Nagorno-Karabakh, the explanation for their plight is simple: Unlike Azerbaijan, Armenia has neither large reserves of oil and gas nor control of vital transport routes to Iran, an important source of weapons and other support for Russia in Ukraine. “They succeed because they have oil and they buy everyone,” said Naver Grigoryan, a Nagorno-Karabakh musician who joined a cavalcade of cars and trucks carrying refugees into Armenia. “We have nothing. We can only talk.”
Azerbaijan’s energy resources have also made it a vital partner for the European Union, whose hunger for energy as it tries to wean itself off deliveries from Russia make autocratic Azerbaijan a “reliable, trustworthy partner”, as a high-ranking EU official said last year. The EU has condemned Azerbaijan’s attack on Nagorno-Karabakh but has taken no concrete action. The Biden administration has stressed in the past that the use of force in Nagorno-Karabakh was “unacceptable”. Nevertheless, in a meeting with Pashinyan in Armenia this week, Samantha Power, the head of the US Agency for International Development, said only that the United States expressed support for his leadership and “reformist government”. — ©2023 The New York Times Company
The solution that this will provide, I say very clearly, I will sign. I do not care what will happen to me, I`m interested in what will happen to Armenia,” - Pashinyan said. He stressed that Armenia will not sign a peace agreement if Azerbaijan does not liberate the "captured" lands. He also noted that the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan should pass along the borders of the former USSR.Armenia would not provide a corridor through its territory, under any circumstances. At the same time, at a meeting in Brussels, Armenia presented its proposals to Azerbaijan on opening communications, Pashinyan said, without revealing what they are
"When hundreds of thousands of Armenians were fleeing from Nagorno Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia, not only did our allies in the security sector refuse to help us, but they also made public calls for a change of power in Armenia to overthrow the democratic government", Pashinyan said, adding that the “conspiracy” against Armenia failed thanks to the unity in the country. An anonymous high-ranking source told Russian state news agency TASS that Pashinyan was following Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s footsteps by “quantum leaps”. "We consider Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's speech at the European Parliament on October 17 as absolutely irresponsible and provocative, especially as far as Russia and Russian-Armenian relations are concerned," the source told TASS, adding that “Armenia is trying to turn into Ukraine No. 3”, calling Moldova a “Ukraine No. 2”.
Armenia has been voicing criticism about Russia and the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty organisation (CSTO) since 2021, when Azerbaijan captured lands inside Armenia, but it became more vocal following the 2022 September attack when Azerbaijan captured a number of military positions inside Armenia, leaving hundreds dead. Armenia’s requests to Russia and CSTO for military assistance remained unanswered, making Armenia reconsider its strategic allies. In a September 24 speech, Pashinyan stated that the “security systems” – meaning CSTO and the alliance with Russia – of which Armenia was part were not effective and that Armenia was seeking to diversify its security architecture. Armenia has recently been more eager for Western-led initiatives and peace negotiations with Azerbaijan. Refusing a number of events with the CSTO and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Armenia hosted a short-term military training with US troops days before Azerbaijan’s September 19 attack on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia has been looking for new possible partners, among them, India and France. India and Armenia already have a number of contracts on arms supplies, while with France Armenia has just agreed to co-operate militarily, which includes delivery of weapons. Russia is still the main supplier of weapons, but with its war in Ukraine, the country struggled to send promised weapons to Armenia, nor has it returned the $400mn Armenia pre-paid for the weapons. Along with security issues, Yerevan faced a test of loyalty when initiating the ratification of the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court. Armenia decided to join the court despite Russia’s warnings and threats that the ratification could affect the two country’s relations. The West has also become one of the leading facilitators of talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. While the talks are facing a standoff over the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders keep repeating that the peace agreement between the two countries is within reach. Pashinyan stated in Strasbourg that Armenia is ready to sign the peace treaty with Azerbaijan by the end of the year.
Those same transit links were already under threat from the war in Ukraine. Severe disruptions to the movement of energy, food, and commercial goods have caused seismic shocks to economies around the world. European gas prices are soaring after Moscow slashed access to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline while Western sanctions have sparked an increase in the prices of the most basic food items around the world.
It is against this backdrop that Armenia can no longer delay the construction of a critical new transport route between Europe and Asia: the Zangezur Corridor. This corridor, long tabled but currently blocked by Armenia, would run from Azerbaijan’s southwestern border through Armenia to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and then to Turkey and beyond. This is the missing link in one of the only East-West trade routes that can bypass Russia. If Armenia is really a friend of the West, as its large diaspora claims, it must return to the negotiating table and immediately allow the opening of the corridor.
Armenia is committed to opening the corridor as part of the ceasefire agreement brokered by Moscow in November 2020. However, the terms of that deal left Russia in charge of the corridor—a dangerous precedent for further mischief-making. More preferable is the formula announced by the European Union’s (EU) Charles Michel last December following trilateral talks with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Michel’s plan would allow each country to control the portion of the corridor which passes through its territory, leaving no room for manipulation by third parties.
No wonder the EU has sought, with some success, to reframe the negotiations and rebuff Moscow’s attempts to manipulate the situation. The search for a secure “southern corridor” bypassing Russia is not new but the current state of global geopolitics dictates a new level of urgency. In theory, the easiest route of transport should be through Iran. However, given U.S. sanctions and chronic underinvestment in Iranian railways, it is hard to see it as a secure or reliable option.
That points to the South Caucasus as a solution. In recent years, different factors have strengthened the region as a transit link. Successful collaboration between Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan has created new links, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway and the Southern Gas Corridor pipelines, that provide Europe with vital Caspian gas and other resources. This initiative gained further momentum when former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan started sending fuel and goods through Azerbaijan in response to the blockade of Russia. However, relying on the South Caucasus route also has drawbacks. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia in an attack that has been seen as a rehearsal for the recent invasion of Ukraine. The military operations involved Russia’s consolidation of control over the two puppet “republics” on Georgian territory, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian tanks are still deployed a mere forty miles from Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.
Ominous signs point to the threat of further Russian incursions. Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has pointed out that “after Ukraine the next target is Georgia.” Dimitri Medvedev, the former Russian president and currently a high-ranking member of the security council, referred to Kazakhstan and Georgia as “artificial” creations on social media, pointing out that “after the liberation of Kyiv, Russia will become united again.” Although the post was taken down ten minutes later and blamed on “hackers,” it has only confirmed suspicions about Russia’s possible future intentions. Therefore, the corridor through Georgia cannot be a reliable solution for a long-term investment nor is it a route completely insulated from Russian interference.
A better solution is the Zangezur Corridor, which is part of a strategic transportation route that extends from Baku to Kars, Turkey’s eastern province, and through Armenian territory near its border with Iran. The Zangezur Corridor would become the shortest land transportation route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Armenia would benefit significantly by opening a missing link in the global supply chain. Yet, so far, Armenia has tried to backtrack on its commitment. With a foreign policy that pays lip service to a partnership with the West, the reality is different. Armenia is firmly embedded as one of Russia’s closest allies and dependents, presenting a major political dilemma for the country’s leadership.
By continuing to block the Zangezur Corridor, Armenia plays to Moscow’s script of creating a stranglehold on the world economy. At the same time, generations of populist anti-Turkish and anti-Azerbaijani rhetoric have narrowed the space available for Armenian politicians to normalize relations with their neighbors. However, now is the time for Armenia to decide whether it is a friend of the West, as its strong and vocal diaspora in the United States and Europe firmly maintains, or not. If it is, it must resume peace negotiations with Azerbaijan and help open the Zangezur Corridor. In the midst of Russia’s blockade of global supply routes, there are few viable solutions for transporting goods from East to West. The Zangezur Corridor stands out as the most optimal among them.
Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/armenia-must-build-zangezur-corridor-204894
Armenian opposition leaders condemned Pashinyan’s presence at the inauguration ceremony held after Erdogan’s reelection and accused him of humiliating Armenia. They argue that Ankara continues to fully support Azerbaijan and make the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on Yerevan meeting Baku’s key demands. One of those demands is the opening of an exterritorial corridor passing through Armenia’s Syunik province, which also borders Iran. Tehran is strongly opposed to the corridor, having repeatedly warned against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia. ran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei emphasized this stance when he met with Erdogan in Tehran last July.
“Iran’s approach to this issue disappoints us and Azerbaijan,” Erdogan said on Wednesday. “I want us to overcome that problem soon.” The Turkish leader claimed that unlike Tehran, Yerevan does not object to the idea of the “Zangezur corridor” which he discussed with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during his trip to Baku.
Pashinyan’s government regularly rejects Azerbaijani demands for such a corridor and says it can only agree to conventional transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has specifically made clear that Azerbaijani citizens and cargo passing through Syunik cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls. Pashinyan and Aliyev openly argued about the matter during a Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow on May 25. Nevertheless, the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan as well as Russia reportedly made major progress on practical modalities of a rail link between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan during a subsequent meeting held in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk met with Pashinyan and his Armenian counterpart, Mher Grigorian, in Yerevan on Wednesday for further discussions on the thorny issue. n Armenian government statement said they concentrated on the “restoration of railway communication” and “border and customs controls based on the sovereignty and equal jurisdiction of the parties.” It did not elaborate.
A peace treaty is good news for both countries, especially smaller and less economically developed Armenia, but also good news for Israel which has been a long-time strategic ally of Azerbaijan that goes back to the 2000s, in part because they view Iran as a common security threat. Israel began their security and military partnership a decade before Turkey began to develop military relations with Azerbaijan. A peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan will open the door for the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Turkey whose border has been closed since 1993.
A peace treaty is bad news for Iran, Israel’s long-time threat. Iran has long interfered in the South Caucasus through covert military supplies to Armenia and by supporting instability, separatism, and Islamic fundamentalism. Persian nationalists claim Azerbaijani’s are not a separate people and view Azerbaijan as a breakaway region that should return to Iranian historic overlordship.
Outside powers had little to do with Armenia and Azerbaijan being close to concluding a peace treaty. The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Minsk Group failed to achieve any success whatsoever since it was founded over three decades ago in 1992. The OSCE’s failure in the South Caucasus added to its long record of failures elsewhere, such as in eastern Ukraine from 2014-2021.
OSCE Minsk Group members were never fully committed to resolving the conflict. France and Russia were biased and supported Armenia. Meanwhile, Washington did not view the South Caucasus as an area of strategic importance to US national security interests – despite Azerbaijan’s close security relationship with Israel. From 2010, the US and France became passive allowing Russia to fill the vacuum in claiming for itself the primary place for pursuing peace talks. The EU only became interested in the South Caucasus 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when it sought to broker a peace treaty, but ultimately failing because of Azerbaijan’s long held distrust of pro-Armenian France.
Azerbaijan’s retaking of Karabakh closed the separatist regime and disbanded its self-defence forces, which had been supplied by Armenia and Iran, which were illegal under the terms of the November 2020 ceasefire agreement. Some Armenian leaders have been detained and put on trial for crimes against humanity committed against Azerbaijani civilians and soldiers in the First Karabakh War from 1988-1992.
Russia has a poor record of resolving conflicts on the territory of the former USSR. After manufacturing ethnic conflicts directly in Moldova and Georgia and indirectly (through Armenia) in Azerbaijan, the Kremlin preferred to freeze conflicts rather than seek to bring about a negotiated settlement. Russian security interests, whether under President Borys Yeltsyn, or imperial nationalist Vladimir Putin, remained to use frozen conflicts to establish military bases as spheres of influence over Eurasia. Russia, Iran, and Armenia worked closely in the South Caucasus for nearly three decades until the Second Karabakh War in 2020.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been critical of Russian policies since his country was defeated in the Second Karabakh War. Pashinyan accused the Kremlin of attempting to stage a coup against him. Russian and Iranian leaders’ distrust Pashinyan because they believe colour revolutions are manufactured coups organised by Western intelligence agencies. Pashinyan came to power in 2018 in a popular uprising against the corrupt pro-Russian ‘Karabakh clan’ (led by former Presidents and Prime Ministers Serzh A. Sargsyan and Robert S. Kocharyan) who had led Armenia since it became an independent country in 1991. The ‘Karabakh clan’ had cemented a close security, economic, and trade relationship with Iran.
Following two relatively short wars in 2020 and 2023, the ground is set for the normalisation of relations by Armenia with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Azerbaijan’s insistence that the treaty recognise the former Soviet republican boundary as their international border is in keeping with the December 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration signed by former Soviet republics. A peace treaty will be beneficial for Israel’s security interests by providing greater stability to the South Caucasus and reducing Iran’s ability to interfere and spread instability.
The normalisation of relations between three South Caucasian countries will reduce Russian-Iranian influence while enhancing the geopolitical influence of the West and Israel. This comes at a strategically important time when the anti-Western axis of evil has declared war on the West with Israel and Ukraine as their battlegrounds.
Source: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/peace-in-the-south-caucasus-is-good-for-israel-and-the-west-and-bad-for-iran/
When Azerbaijani forces, in a lightning assault, overwhelmed the self-declared Armenian-populated republic of Nagorno Karabakh late last month, forcing it to legally dissolve itself and most of its population to flee to nearby Armenia, it may have brought some peace to the long-troubled south Caucasus. But observers warn the abrupt end to the seemingly intractable conflict may have also sown the seeds of future conflicts.
It comes at the cost of erasing the Armenian population of Karabakh from their ancestral homeland – if mostly bloodlessly. And it represents an unambiguous triumph of military force over diplomacy that will likely encourage hawks across Russia’s sphere of influence, from Moldova to the Caucasus. The most immediate effects are likely to be the realignment of the Southern Caucasus, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal. “We’re looking at a very significant shift in the balance of forces.”
Azerbaijan’s sponsor Turkey is emerging as the dominant power with major ambitions to project its influence, via Baku, into the heart of Turkic-speaking former Soviet central Asia. Russia’s days as key arbiter and peacekeeper in the region may be numbered, as Armenia turns away from its traditional protector in Moscow and seeks new sources of support to the West. Meanwhile, Iran, largely on the sidelines of recent events, grows increasingly leery of expanding Turkish power, Azerbaijan’s close ties with Israel, and potential future territorial changes on its own northern flank.
“There is no doubt that Azerbaijan’s victory is also a major win for Turkey, and that has a lot of implications down the road,” says Mr. Lukyanov. “In Armenia, there’s disappointment with its ally Russia’s inability to play a significant role, especially in the security area, and they are looking for new partners in NATO and the West. Everything is in flux.”
Azerbaijan sets the rules
Barely three years ago the picture looked very different. Armenia occupied a vast swath of western Azerbaijan, including the self-declared independent state of Nagorno Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan which it had won in a bitter post-Soviet war. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech about the crisis, decades of diplomatic efforts by the Minsk Group – led by Russia, France, and the United States – had repeatedly failed to reach a compromise that might preserve the ethnic autonomy of Armenian Karabakh while returning illegally-seized Azerbaijani lands to Baku. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched a well-planned blitzkrieg, using modern Turkish and Israeli weapons, that swept Armenian forces out of all the occupied territories except Karabakh, which was temporarily saved by a Moscow-brokered ceasefire and the insertion of Russian peacekeeping forces.
But Moscow’s regional influence suffered badly when it became embroiled in its war against Ukraine, while military victory made Azerbaijan less willing to compromise on its claims for full control over Karabakh. When Azerbaijan imposed a full blockade of Karabakh last December, Russian peacekeeping forces did nothing. Despite last-ditch diplomatic efforts to reach a settlement over beleaguered Karabakh, Azerbaijan again resorted to military force, seizing Karabakh in a rapid assault last month and triggering a mass exodus of Armenians – one that seems likely to be permanent – from the stricken territory. Azerbaijani experts claim their state showed great patience for many years and only resorted to force when it was clear that Armenians would never compromise. Ilgar Velizade, an independent political expert in Baku, says that’s the end of the conflict and peace is now possible if Armenia wants it.
As for any Armenians who choose to remain in Karabakh, they must accept Azerbaijani citizenship, which will henceforth be the sole source of their rights and freedoms, he says. “There is a plan under which they [Karabakh Armenians] may return to their homes and be re-integrated. But if they want to live in Azerbaijan, they must live as citizens of this country.”
For Armenia, the rapid reversal of battlefield fortunes and now the influx of over 100,000 refugees from Karabakh has aggravated political divisions. They could ultimately bring down the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power following a peaceful pro-democracy revolution five years ago. “The population of Armenia finds it very difficult to bear the loss of [Karabakh],” says Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, head of the independent Voskanapat think tank in Yerevan. “We could see a fresh wave of protests, with a high probability of a change of power in the near future.”
Armenia faces hard geopolitical choices, none of them good, he says. Despite deep and longstanding ties to Russia, Moscow’s lack of support for Armenia in its crisis has been deeply disappointing for many. But the West seems unlikely to serve as Armenia’s replacement for Russia, says Mr. Lukyanov, as the South Caucasus has never been a high priority for the West, and its fate has been largely left to the interplay of local powers. “With what’s happening in the Middle East right now, it seems less likely than ever that the U.S. or European Union are going to want to devote resources in this area,” he says. “That leaves Armenia with very few choices.”
“Unfortunately the alternative solutions offered by the West do not meet the main concerns of the Armenian side in any way. Especially in the realm of security,” says Mr. Melik-Shahnazaryan. “So, Armenia is presently facing existential challenges that it is not yet able to solve.”
Ripple effects
The next crisis may well erupt over the Zangezur Corridor, a proposed transport route that would run from Turkey, through Armenian territory, to create an unbroken and reliable land connection between Turkey and Azerbaijan for the first time. It would also link Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhichevan, greatly strengthening Azerbaijan and solidifying its links with Turkey. Turkey champions this route because it would provide open access to former Soviet Central Asian states, just across the Caspian Sea from the port city of Baku.
Russia and Iran are not pleased with the Zangezur Corridor project – largely because of the boost it would provide to Turkish influence – and might move to block it. Moscow and Teheran want to involve Azerbaijan in their own North-South Corridor transport route, which would run from Iranian ports on the Indian Ocean, through as-yet incomplete railways in Iran and Azerbaijan, to link up with Russia’s vast east-west rail network. “The North-South Corridor is one possible reason behind Russia’s passive attitude toward Azerbaijan’s recent actions,” says Dmitry Suslov, an expert with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “As Russia reorients toward Asia and the Global South, this corridor has become extremely important, both politically and economically.”
If Azerbaijan’s military solution of the Karabakh issue has set the stage for a fresh round of international competition, and perhaps conflict in the south Caucasus, it may also hold implications for other frozen conflicts around the former Soviet Union. Rumblings out of Moldova suggest that some nationalist politicians see it as a model for dealing with their own breakaway region of Transnistria. One of Georgia’s two “independent” statelets, Abkhazia, is reportedly moving closer to Russia in hopes of forestalling any future attempt to force it back under Georgian rule.
“It was unthinkable, just a few years ago, that Karabakh would ever be taken back under Azerbaijani rule,” says Grigory Shvedov, editor of Caucasian Knot, an independent online news site that covers the Caucasian region. “But Azerbaijan broke the status quo through military force, and got everything it wanted. That will certainly be an inspiration for militarists everywhere who favor forceful solutions and don’t care about diplomatic ones.”
Regarding Armenia’s intention to develop road and railway connection routes between the two nations in addition to regional states, Raisi relayed Iran's support, calling the plans an effective step to set in place peace and protect the interests of neighboring nations. Raisi affirmed that any step aimed at opening communication routes and infrastructures in the region, while simultaneously respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries is supported by Iran. He also called Iran's hosting of the 3+3 meeting in October a “constructive step” to strengthen regional cooperation.
The 3+3 format cooperation mechanism includes the three South Caucasus countries: Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan plus Russia, Turkey, and Iran. “Developing relations with neighbors and strengthening relations to ensure mutual interests and the interests of regional countries is the fundamental policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Raisi added. On the other hand, Pashinyan stated that the increased interactions between both Armenia and Iran show the determination of the two neighbors to expand their bilateral ties in all fields.
Back in October, Raisi said that geopolitical change in the Caucasus is "unacceptable" as it would harm the interests of countries in the region. The Iranian President made the statement after hosting Azerbaijani and Armenian officials for talks on the successive developments in the Caucasus, specifically regarding Azerbaijan's military campaign in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan seems to be a “gift that keeps on giving“, although the only problem is that the beneficiary is anyone but Armenia. On the contrary, with him coming to power in 2018, in the aftermath of the so-called “Velvet Revolution” (the same name used in Czechoslovakia in 1989 and aptly recycled by Pashinyan himself), Turkey and Azerbaijan couldn’t have possibly gotten a better strategic gift than this. The results of his rule have been an unmitigated disaster for Armenia, as evidenced by the loss of most of the territory of Artsakh (more widely known as Nagorno-Karabakh), further galvanizing Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman ambitions.
Prior to Pashinyan’s 2018 color revolution, Azerbaijan was regularly engaging in skirmishes with local Artsakh forces in an attempt to “defrost” and escalate the conflict which was more or less frozen since 1994. Each and every time, Russia intervened to prevent such escalation, including in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018. However, that year, after Pashinyan took power, he started a campaign of sweeping anti-Russian “reforms” and moves that essentially distanced Moscow and Yerevan. This included closing down Russian-language schools, as well as openly declared intentions to join the so-called “Euro-Atlantic integrations”, which effectively means joining the European Union and NATO.
Thus, at that point, Russia was faced with a very difficult choice – either help its historical ally which was (slowly but surely) turning into anything but, or leave Armenia to its own devices so as not to risk derailing the crucially important rapprochement with Ankara and Baku. Even then, Moscow decided to intervene in the nick of time and prevent the total loss of Artsakh by rapidly deploying 2000 soldiers to the area. So how did Pashinyan react to this? He started a blame game in an attempt to shift responsibility from himself and simply throw Russia under the bus. This accomplished nothing but the further cooling of relations between Yerevan and Moscow, the last thing the Armenian people need.
And while 2000 Russian soldiers keep protecting the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh, Pashinyan allowed the massive expansion of the American Embassy in Yerevan, which is now housing over 2000 staff members, many of whom are intelligence operatives whose sole purpose is to hurt Russia’s interest in the region. As if that wasn’t enough, in a recent interview with the Italian La Repubblica, Armenia’s Prime Minister effectively announced the breaking of close ties with Russia. At the same time, there is an ongoing strategic shift towards France, the country that Pashinyan foolishly thinks will get into an open confrontation with Turkey over Armenia (to say nothing of Artsakh).
Namely, in early July, several sources revealed that France would deliver weapons to Yerevan, including armored vehicles and short-range SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems. There was no mention of drone acquisitions, although unmanned systems proved to be the main decisive factor during the 2020 Azeri invasion of Artsakh. Precisely Russia is one of the world’s leaders in this regard, as evidenced by the superb performance of its drones in Ukraine. Why hasn’t Pashinyan approached Moscow to procure thousands of strike drones that could provide a significant asymmetric advantage over the more numerous and heavily armed Azeri forces? This would help both Artsakh and Armenia proper.
However, Pashinyan has other plans, including the wasting of Armenia’s modest resources on expensive French weapons that are now burning across the endless steppes of Ukraine, along with countless other Western tanks and armored vehicles, many destroyed precisely by aforementioned (and inexpensive) Russian drones. In the meantime, Azerbaijan keeps militarizing the border with Armenia, while Artsakh is still in jeopardy. The only thing standing between Baku’s forces and the Armenian people in the area are Russian peacekeepers. What’s more, Moscow’s forces in Armenia proper are the only reason why Turkey doesn’t dare to attack the country itself. However, all that doesn’t mean much to Pashinyan.
In an obvious reference to Russia, during the aforementioned interview with the Italian La Repubblica, he said that having “just one partner is a strategic mistake”. According to Pashinyan’s “logic”, France will get into a confrontation with Turkey, one of its NATO allies, for the sake of Armenia, a country nearly 3,500 km away that can be reached only through neighboring Georgia. What’s more, Tbilisi is extremely unlikely to even allow this, as it has zero reasons to worsen its largely cordial relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan for the sake of Armenia. All this is without even taking into account the troubles Paris is going through as its neocolonial system in Africa is faced with unprecedented unraveling.
The US is also unlikely to allow the worsening of ties within NATO at the time when it’s trying to keep the belligerent alliance together or at the very least maintain a semblance of unity during Russia’s strategic counteroffensive. For the sake of the Armenian people, as well as the preservation of their magnificent civilizational heritage, Yerevan should seek to reestablish close ties with Russia, the only true guarantor of Armenia’s security.
The French government condemned Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh that paved the way for the restoration of Azerbaijani control over the region and displaced its virtually entire ethnic Armenian population. President Emmanuel Macron suggested last week that Baku might now attack Armenia as well.
“The president of the republic said it: the integrity, sovereignty, protection of the Armenian population are an absolute objective for us,” Lecornu told the France Info broadcaster in a weekend interview. “Could France intervene militarily?” he said. “I do not think so. It is up to the president of the republic and head of the armed forces, obviously, to answer this question.” Lecornu did not rule out arms supplies or other military aid to Armenia. The minister noted that France opened recently a “defense mission” in the South Caucasus state which is looking into “their needs, particularly in terms of defense and protection.” He did not go into details.
Macron’s government signaled the possibility of arms supplies when it sent a delegation of French defense officials to Yerevan in October 2022. They met with Defense Minister Suren Papikian, Armenian army chief Eduard Asrian and High-Technology Minister Robert Khachatrian. Papikian visited Paris in September 2022 and June this year. He met with Lecornu on both occasions. Visiting Yerevan in July, the French Senate speaker, Gerard Larcher, called for the “acceleration of the delivery of defensive weapons by France to Armenia.”
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian described France as a “real ally of Armenia and the Armenian people” when he met with the speaker of the lower house of the French parliament, Yael Braun-Pivet, in Dublin last Thursday. According to his press office, Simonian also “expressed confidence about the continuation of France's efforts to ensure Armenia's security.” Azerbaijan has repeatedly accused Macron and other French officials of siding with Armenia in the Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev charged on July 3 that Paris is fomenting “Armenian separatism” in Karabakh. Yerevan rejected the Azerbaijani criticism.
Source: https://www.azatutyun.am/a/32619548.html
When the Second Karabakh War ended in 2020 with Azerbaijan’s victory and Russian peacekeeping forces being brought into the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, it seemed that Russia had retained its status as the key mediator in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. Within just a few months, however, the situation had changed beyond recognition. The West is now once again part of the peace negotiations and moving ever closer to being the main intermediary, pushing Russia out.
Until September, the lead in the mediation process went back and forth, but the gradual weakening of Russia’s position was noticeable. The military escalation in March around the settlement of Farukh led to the ethnic Armenian forces of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh having to give up their positions and local Armenians having to abandon their homes. In August, continued military action forced the handing over of the Lachin corridor between Armenia and Karabakh to Azerbaijan, with the Armenians living there having to leave.
All of this demonstrated that the Russian peacekeepers are no longer inspiring the opposing parties with fear or respect, and sounded alarm bells for Yerevan and the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, who at present see the Russian peacekeepers as their only guarantors of security. In the region’s capital Stepanakert, many are convinced that Baku’s aim is ethnic cleansing, and their fears have been confirmed by the fact that there are now no Armenians on the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh towns of Shusha and Hadrut, which came under Azerbaijani control in 2020.
The gradual weakening of Russia’s position turned into a collapse in September, when the Azerbaijani forces crossed not only the line of contact with the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh, but also the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Artillery strikes reached cities and villages deep within Armenian territory. In two days, according to the Armenian Defense Ministry, over 200 Armenian soldiers were killed and in the days that followed, evidence of the murder and torture of Armenian prisoners, including female soldiers, appeared online.
According to the official Azerbaijani version, the border in this region has not been delimited or demarcated and so there are no grounds for maintaining that the military action took place on Armenian territory. Yet wherever the border may be, towns such as the Armenian resort of Jermuk, or Vardenis on the shores of Lake Sevan, are internationally recognized as being Armenian.
It’s possible that the main reason that the military action unfolded specifically in the southern part of Armenia is down to communication links. With the border between Russia and Europe effectively closed, the South Caucasus route to Turkey, Iran, and beyond has gained a new significance. The three-party agreement that ended the war in 2020 stated that “Armenia guarantees the security of transport links” between the western regions of Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhichevan.
Baku interprets this as meaning that the road from western Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan, which will run through the southern Armenian region of Syunik (Azerbaijan prefers the term “the Zangezur Corridor”) should have the same status as the Lachin Corridor from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. That is to say that it should be extraterritorial and shouldn’t be controlled by the Armenian authorities, with, for example, Russian border guards doing the job instead. For Russia, this is also an entirely acceptable option, as it would give Moscow control over the road linking Russia and Turkey: a convenient alternative to the current communication links through pro-Western Georgia.
Armenia, however, sees this interpretation of the issue as a threat to the country’s sovereignty, especially as the corridor could impede Armenia’s transport links with Iran, which also pass through Syunik. Yerevan is supported on this issue not only by Tehran, which doesn’t want to lose control of its links with Armenia, but also, it seems, by the West, which would prefer not to hand over important communication links to the Russians.
The most important thing about the September escalation was who stopped it. If in the war of 2020 the conflict was stopped by Moscow, now the laurel wreaths of peace go to the West. What’s more, it was done without the involvement of the military: a few calls from Washington to Baku were sufficient.
Moscow and the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) were either unable or unwilling to help their ally, from the point of view of Yerevan, even though the military action was now taking place in Armenia itself. The CSTO answered a direct request for assistance with a promise to send observers, causing indignation even among pro-Russian Armenians. In addition, in explaining their refusal to intervene, Moscow and the CSTO essentially repeated Baku’s arguments about the absence of delimited borders.
Even the rhetoric of Moscow and the CSTO was toothless compared with that of NATO, though the U.S.-led alliance doesn’t officially owe anything to Yerevan, unlike its ally Russia. Against this backdrop of Russian passivity, the West’s actions appeared far more beneficial. Active contact between Washington, Yerevan, and Baku was begun within the first hours of the military action, and fairly strong-worded statements were made by U.S., French, and EU representatives.
Many saw the visit to Armenia by the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, as clear evidence of the West’s support for Armenia. In addition, Western bureaucrats condemned Azerbaijan’s alleged war crimes, despite previously having preferred more general rhetoric and appeals to both sides. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the West has gone over to Armenia’s side, simply that it is trying to help the two sides to achieve peace through diplomatic pressure.
The West’s mediation efforts peaked at the European Political Community summit in Prague in early October, where the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders met in person and agreed to send a mission of EU observers to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border: another unprecedented step that would have been difficult to imagine several months ago. The most striking statement to come out of the summit, however, was that the signing of a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia was expected by the end of the year.
Although Armenian officials insist that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh was never territorial for Armenia, and merely concerns issues revolving around the population’s rights and freedoms, it is clear that Baku will interpret the agreement as a recognition by Armenia that the region is part of Azerbaijan. Following its defeat in 2020, however, Yerevan’s ability to influence the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has been severely limited.
In late October, Moscow attempted to regain initiative, when Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Sochi, but the summit yielded little. Still, even under Western mediation, there’s no guarantee that the treaty will be signed, since the parties have very different concepts for the future of the region, and there is a lack of trust. They may be voicing their agreement at this stage in order to be seen as taking a constructive approach, while counting on the other side to ultimately refuse to sign the deal.
Whatever the case, even if the peace agreement is signed, it’s unlikely that Baku will be able to immediately establish control over the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh, since that depends not only on Yerevan, but also on the Armenians who live there, as well as on Russia, which still has boots on the ground. It seems that the fate of the region will be decided at talks between Stepanakert and Baku with the mediation of Russian peacekeepers, although both Azerbaijan and Armenia, for the time being, prefer to keep quiet about this.
The obvious explanation for the West’s return to the South Caucasus is that the war in Ukraine has weakened Russia’s position in the post-Soviet arena. Yet Armenia and Azerbaijan have more profound reasons to look to the West for an alternative to Russian mediation. Those reasons are to be found in the political philosophies advocated for by the West and Putin’s Russia. The West continues to defend what is known as a “liberal, rules-based order.” Russia, meanwhile, relies on realpolitik, where the strong do as they wish, and the weak put up with it.
The multipolarity declared by Moscow as the ideal world order can only be of interest to relatively strong regional powers such as Iran or Turkey. Small countries such as Armenia, and even the relatively more powerful Azerbaijan, are doomed to navigate their way between regional powers. The best that they can hope for is a role as a satellite, and at worst they could lose their sovereignty. The liberal world order, on the other hand, though it strengthens the West’s leading role, benefits smaller countries as it at least provides some rules, allowing them to survive and even resolve conflicts.
Still, breaking off relations with Russia completely would be risky for both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and for now, the outcome remains unclear. The Kremlin, of course, still has the convincing argument that is military force. But in a situation where Russia is itself being beaten on the battlefield, it doesn’t make quite the same impression as it did just a few months ago.
This despite the fact, that Armenia and Armenians had lived through perhaps the best two decades in their modern history. For two decades, Armenia had managed to avert large scale war, had retained control of not only its Soviet-era borders but also territories (Artsakh) it had liberated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Armenia’s GDP and standard of living had improved dramatically over the same two decades, emigration had slowed, Armenia was enjoying international prominence, relative to its size, with successes in sports, culture, technology, and entertainment and, albeit slowly, programs were in place that were gradually improving Armenia’s democratic, societal, and economic standards.
Fast forward 4 years after Pashinyan’s “velvet revolution” and Armenia has gone through perhaps the worst period of its history since the Armenian Genocide. In the last few years, Armenia has effectively lost control over not just Artsakh, but parts of Armenia-proper. Over 5,000 Armenian soldiers perished in a matter of a few weeks in a “war” that Pashinyan himself admitted could have been averted. Corruption is as rampant as ever. Democracy, freedom-of-speech, and opposition rights have been rolled back to days not seen since the early years of independence or the Soviet era. And Armenia is capitulating more and more on a daily basis to Russia’s, and even more concerning, Turkey’s demands.
Since the disastrous war in 2020 and Pashinyan’s capitulation, after what some claim was a fabricated war to hand over Artsakh, several rounds of apologetic narratives have sprouted up trying to defend Pashinyan. One of the first apologetic narratives was that Armenia was bound to lose the war because Turkey supported Azerbaijan, and there was no way Armenia could stand up against a regional power like Turkey. This narrative was quickly put to bed when it was revealed that Russia had offered to stop the war in its first weeks by sending in Russian troops to Artsakh, but Pashinyan had refused. Furthermore, if Armenia’s traditional allies Russia and Iran were lukewarm in their support of Armenia, that was actually Pashinyan’s fault too, because he was the one who damaged relations with the two countries immediately after coming to power.
Another narrative was that Pashinyan should not be blamed for the losses, and it was really the former authorities who were to blame, for not keeping the Armenian military strong enough to defend Armenia and Artsakh. This narrative is also easily dismissed. Afterall, the former authorities had managed to defend Artsakh for 20 years before Pashinyan came to power. What’s more, Pashinyan was already in charge for two years before Azerbaijan attacked, and if there were any gaps in Armenia’s defenses, it was Pashinyan’s responsibility to close them. Instead, Pashinyan had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars buying fighter jets that Armenia could not use, because the missiles for them were not also purchased. He had also replaced dozens of top military officials with people perceived more loyal to him. The apologisms trying to blame everyone and everything else besides Pashinyan are too numerous to list here, but the one getting airtime recently, especially among Russophobe circles, is that while Pashinyan may be incompetent, the real reasons for Armenia’s troubles are shifting geopolitical realities.
“Aligned Russian and Turkish Interests Are To Blame”
To be more specific, these pundits, who either suffer from Dunning Kruger cognitive biases or are paid anti-Russian operatives, claim that Armenia is in its current bind not because of Pashinyan but rather because Russia and Turkey have aligned regional interests that are not currently favorable to Armenia. What they fail to realize, or mention is that, even if Russia and Turkey have come to some sort of an agreement by which they are rhetorically “slicing” Armenia up between them, it is only because Pashinyan’s government itself has embraced a multipolar foreign policy where it is trying to balance its relations, unnecessarily, between the two regional powers.
Small countries such as Armenia do not get to play multipolar politics. In the case of Armenia, it is even more ridiculous, and outright treasonous, to try to balance your relations between your historical ally and the country whose troops defend your borders with a historical enemy, who in the last century tried to wipe you off the face of the world and still denies it, and only a couple years ago, armed Azerbaijan with drones and other military support that killed thousands of your soldiers.
Can anyone imagine Israel trying to “balance” its international relations between the United States and Iran? Even when the United States doesn’t go squarely along with all of Israel’s wishes, on thorny topics such as Iran or Palestine, the Israelis do not shift away from their unipolar relationship with the United States. Regardless of whether a leftist, rightist, liberal or conservative government comes to power, Israel understands that it is too small and too surrounded by enemies to have the luxury of a multipolar foreign policy.
The reality is that Turkey, Russia, and Iran, the region’s powers, have always had matters between them in which their interests align, and others in which their interests clash. This has been the case for centuries. What’s also obvious is that each of these regional powers has drifted further away from the West in the past few decades. Armenia, on the other hand, with its 2018 “velvet revolution”, decided to go the very opposite direction. What we have as a result today is an Armenian government that is no longer trusted by its historical partners, Russia and Iran and one that Turkey has succeeded in turning into a bargaining chip between the three. Basically, if Armenia is being “sliced” up between its powerful neighbors, it is only because Pashinyan and his government are continuing to allow it, if not outright encouraging it. Whether it is because they are incompetent or traitorous is largely irrelevant. Pashinyan, not a new geopolitical reality, is Armenia’s primary problem.
The implications of this statement should be divided into two parts — implications for the Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) Republic and implications for Armenia. The reference to the Alma-Ata declaration of 1991 sent a clear message to all external players involved in South Caucasus geopolitics that the Armenian government recognizes Nagorno Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.
It should be noted that this is not something new for the current government. In his press conference on December 24, 2021, the Armenian prime minister stated that Nagorno Karabakh had no chance to be outside Azerbaijan. The same ideas were circulated during his January 2022 press conference, and his speech in parliament in April 2022, when he spoke about lowering the bar on Karabakh’s status. There was much domestic political infighting, as Pashinyan sought to prove that all previous Armenian leaders recognized Nagorno Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, in this way trying to justify his current position.
The recognition by Armenia of Nagorno Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan provides Baku with opportunities to reject any notion of independent Nagorno Karabakh. When Pashinyan hinted in April 2022 that Armenia was ready to discuss autonomy for Nagorno Karabakh within Azerbaijan, he hoped that President Aliyev would abandon his claim that no Nagorno Karabakh existed after the second Karabakh war. However, Azerbaijan continued in its claims that there was no Nagorno Karabakh, and it was not going to discuss that issue with anyone.
Meanwhile, suppose Armenia and Azerbaijan will sign a peace agreement within the Prague statement’s framework with no mention of Nagorno Karabakh. In that case, it will mean that Armenia accepts Azerbaijan’s position that there is no Nagorno Karabakh as a territorial administrative unit. Recently, the Armenian government has spoken about the necessity of Azerbaijan – Nagorno Karabakh or Baku – Stepanakert talks within some special international mechanisms. However, if the Armenia – Azerbaijan peace treaty does not mention Nagorno Karabakh, it is implausible that Azerbaijan will agree to talk with Nagorno Karabakh as a political entity.
Azerbaijan may talk with Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh, but only as representatives of ethnic minorities living in Azerbaijan. These so-called talks will probably be conducted by state bodies, which are responsible for domestic political issues, or for dealing with ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan. Neither EU nor the US, France, or any other Western player will force Azerbaijan to start negotiations with Nagorno Karabakh as a de facto independent entity.
A turning point has been reached in the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Last week, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Armenia could only achieve peace on one condition: that it limit its territorial ambitions to the borders of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. In other words, it must relinquish its claim to Nagorno-Karabakh, having fought multiple wars with Azerbaijan for control of the mountainous region.
A few days later, on April 23, Azerbaijan set up a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor, the so-called “road of life” between Armenia and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It seems that Yerevan is ready to decisively surrender Karabakh. Pashinyan’s announcement was widely publicized and stunned many with its bluntness, though in essence there was nothing new in it. For several years, beginning with defeat in the 2020 war, the Armenian government has tried to find a formula for Karabakh’s future that would satisfy Baku and wouldn’t result in widespread dissatisfaction in Armenia.
As early as April of last year, Pashinyan spoke of a change in priorities. The key issue for Yerevan was not Karabakh’s status, but “security and rights guarantees” for those living there. In other words, Karabakh would be a part of Azerbaijan, but there would be tough negotiations on specific issues such as the status of the Armenian language. The prime minister also tried to avoid responsibility by saying that Yerevan’s decision had been made at the request of international partners “near and far.”
In September, Pashinyan announced that he was ready to sign a peace deal with Baku: and yes, many Armenians would regard him as a traitor, but the main thing was “long-term peace and security for Armenia, with a territory of 29,800 square kilometers”—i.e., the borders of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, without Karabakh. Against the backdrop of these statements, Baku has been gradually expanding the area it controls in Karabakh. Yerevan’s international partners didn’t get involved, and the Armenian government decided not to respond, as it would have inevitably angered not only Baku but also international mediators.
Azerbaijan didn’t even face any consequences when it blockaded the Lachin Corridor linking Armenia and Karabakh in December 2022 (Baku maintained that there was no blockade on its part). Armenia’s response was limited to using an alternative route that had opened up in the spring: a dirt track that even off-road vehicles could barely navigate. Even that was soon off limits, however, with the Azerbaijanis shooting at Armenian police using this route and later setting up a checkpoint.
After that, it was only a matter of time before Azerbaijan set up a checkpoint on the main road to Stepanakert, the capital of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. That happened on April 23. Russian peacekeepers didn’t get involved, even though according to the tripartite agreements of 2020, the Lachin Corridor was supposed to be under their control. The checkpoint poses numerous new and difficult problems for the Armenians. What documents will Azeri border guards demand? Can they detain Armenians for simply looking suspicious? Will they only allow entry into Armenia, but maintain that there are no grounds to return to Karabakh?
The answers to these questions largely depend on whether the Armenians will accept this new reality. Right now, it seems they already have. Yerevan has realized that, ultimately, neither mass protests nor international partners who do nothing except “express concern” can make a difference to the fate of Karabakh. Last summer, the Karabakh Armenians agreed to direct talks with Baku. Officially, the aim of the negotiations is merely to provide electricity and gas to the unrecognized republic, but it’s clear that the talks are covering more than that. Yerevan agrees that the Karabakh Armenians have to make their own deals: this is a concession to Baku that also allows Yerevan to avoid responsibility.
So what lies ahead for Karabakh? There are no grounds to expect the ethnic cleansing that has been spoken of in Yerevan or the partisan war that Baku could fear. Judging by the comments of the Azerbaijani authorities, they intend to treat the Karabakh Armenians as they do other national minorities, such as the Lezgins, the Talysh, and the Tats. There will be no special autonomous areas or adaptation programs. Still, it won’t be easy for the remaining Armenians in Karabakh to get an Azerbaijani passport. Confronted with the new, brutal reality, they may decide after all to move to Armenia.
That will give rise to another question: whether ethnic Armenians will be able to sell their property in Karabakh, or whether it will be appropriated. The Azerbaijani authorities will likely take different approaches to the region’s native inhabitants and settlers from Armenia. Given these circumstances, the most realistic outcome appears to be the mass emigration of Karabakh Armenians. Only elderly residents with strong attachments to their homes will remain. They don’t take part in political life or create problems for the authorities.
All of this will no doubt anger Armenian society. It’s not just a matter of national pride, but also of material difficulties: it won’t be easy to house around 100,000 immigrants in a country of under 3 million. But these problems are nothing compared with the threat of a permanent, low-level war along the entire length of its border. A recent event in the village of Tegh in the Armenian border region of Syunik was a sobering reminder of the reality of that threat. The Azerbaijanis took offense to the fact that the Armenians were building a new guard post there. There was a shootout, and soldiers on both sides—seven in total—were killed.
The Armenian authorities now know that the EU observation mission that they invited in for the next two years won’t miraculously save them. When the shooting began, the European observers weren’t on site. Their report merely noted that “in the absence of a demarcated border, the border of 1991 should be observed and the forces of both parties should move back to a safe distance from that line.” Yerevan was so disappointed that Pashinyan again spoke of a readiness to place a competing mission from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization on the border.
There are fears in Yerevan that tensions on the border could continue even after the conclusion of the Karabakh conflict. There is also, for example, the issue of the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, which according to the 2020 tripartite agreement should be linked by road to the rest of Azerbaijan. Disputes on its status risk new escalations.
The Armenians have already been through the denial and anger stages of grief, and now they are in the process of bargaining. Before they can reach the final stage of acceptance, they will have to go through depression, which will be softened by talk in Yerevan of peaceful development through, for example, the opening of a land border with Turkey and revitalizing economic ties with it. Statements on the widening of cooperation with the United States and EU further the same ends.
Relations with Russia, meanwhile, will have to be overhauled, since the main subject of discussion—Karabakh—will disappear. For the majority of Armenians, the Kremlin will be seen as an unreliable ally that abandoned them in their hour of need. Only a few opposition figures from the old elites will maintain that this is all Pashinyan’s fault, and that if he had only recognized Crimea as Russian territory, everything would have been different. In all other respects, Moscow’s influence will be on par with that of Ankara, Brussels, and Washington.
Source: https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89635
The name of the Syunik/Zangezur region in itself reflects controversy that dates back to the Russian Empire and its collapse in 1917 — which gave birth to the then briefly independent republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Known by its Armenian name, Syunik, since antiquity, Russian authorities renamed the territory Zangezur in the 19th century, reflecting the Azeri majority population at the time. Britain — which intervened in the region at the end of World War I — sustained that practice when it approved Azerbaijan’s administration of the territory. Armenian forces, however, seized control of the Zangezur region in November 1919, and when Soviet control was asserted over both Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1920, the region was formally transferred to Armenian sovereignty as the Syunik Province.
The First and Second Nagorno-Karabakh Wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan, fought in 1993-94 and 2020, respectively, resulted in turmoil that saw the political map of the region drastically changed. A decisive Armenian victory in the first war resulted in the loss of significant territory by Azerbaijan, as Armenia created a land bridge between Armenia proper and the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. A similarly decisive Azerbaijani victory in 2020 erased these Armenian gains, and Azerbaijan won control over part of Nagorno-Karabakh. After renewed fighting in September 2023, Azerbaijan gained control over the rest of the break-away region, resulting in an exodus of Armenians, and raising the specter of Azerbaijan trying to seize control of the nearby Syunik/Zangezur region as well.
Pan-Turkic Dreams
The importance of the Syunik/Zangezur region goes beyond the assertion of historic territorial claims. A mutual blockade between Armenia and Azerbaijan, instituted in 1989, resulted in the economic isolation of the Nakhichivan enclave, an Azerbaijani-controlled territory wedged between Turkey, Armenia and Iran. During Soviet times, Nakhchivan was connected to Azerbaijan proper by a railroad that ran through the Syunik/Zangezur region. The 2020 ceasefire agreement that brought an end to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War mandated that the 1989 blockade be terminated, and that Armenia facilitate the opening of so-called “transport connections” between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan that would permit the “unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions.”
Initial discussions about the reopening of the Soviet-era rail link, however, soon got bogged down over the concept of a more expansive “Zangezur corridor” introduced into the diplomatic mix by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. In 2021, during meetings with Turkish President Recep Erdogan, Aliyev stated that a Zangezur corridor would “unite the whole Turkic world.” Aliyev was playing on a long-held Turkish desire for a direct link between it and Azerbaijan that would eliminate Iran’s physical access to Armenia, while opening a direct land route from Turkey, through Azerbaijan, to northern Iran, where there is a majority Azeri population, and Central Asia. Aliyev outlined this vision in November 2021 at a meeting of the Organization of Turkic States. The subversive aspects of this campaign were reflected in the recent appearances of posters in the Iranian city of Tabriz, home to a sizeable Azeri population, proclaiming that “Zangezur is Azerbaijani” and promoting the creation of a Baku-Tabriz-Ankara axis.
Zangezur Corridor
The Iran Factor
Iran’s 40-mile border with Armenia has become one of the most strategically important pieces of terrain when it comes to Iran’s perceptions of its national security interests. Iran deployed some 50,000 troops to the border zone in 2022 in a signal to both Turkey — a Nato member — and Azerbaijan that it would not tolerate any change in international borders in the region and that the territorial integrity of Armenia must be preserved. Those troops remain at a high state of readiness. This isn’t simple posturing by Iran. Indeed, Iran has made it clear that any redrawing of borders that removes Armenia as a neighbor represents a red line. The opening by Iran, in August 2022, of a consulate in Syunik/Zangezur has been seen by many regional analysts as a clear sign of Iran’s commitment to the territorial integrity of Armenia.
For the moment, Iran appears to be seeking a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. In separate meetings on Oct. 4 with the secretary of the Armenian Security Council, Armen Grigorian, and the president of Azerbaijan’s representative for special assignments, Khalaf Khalafov, Iranian President Ebraham Raisi warned both men that Iran viewed the Zangezur Corridor concept as a “springboard for Nato in the region,” and that Iran was “resolutely opposed” to all efforts to facilitate its creation, according to Mohammad Jamshidi, the deputy head of the Iranian Presidential Administration. Instead, Raisi emphasized the need for all parties to make use of the so-called “3 plus 3 format” — which brings together Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia on the one hand, and Turkey, Iran and Russia on the other — when it comes to resolving disputes.
The war now between Hamas and Israel has added a new, extremely dangerous geopolitical twist to an already complex drama. Israel is very concerned about the war with Hamas expanding to include Hezbollah in Lebanon, and perhaps Iran. Armenian politicians, such as the former deputy of the national assembly, Arman Abovyan, have expressed concern that, given the history of close cooperation between Israel and Azerbaijan regarding both the Azeri-Armenian conflict and in containing Iran regionally, the Zangezur Corridor crisis could be elevated and accelerated in an effort to divert Iranian resources away from a potential conflict with Israel — either by proxy via Hezbollah or directly — by having Azerbaijan position itself to seize control of the Syunik/Zangezur region by force.
Global Uncertainty
At a time when the world is consumed by conflict (the ongoing Ukrainian-Russian, the still simmering Armenian-Azerbaijani and the freshly erupted Hamas-Israeli wars, to name three), the last thing needed now is a new round of conflict between two regional powers, Turkey and Iran. That would have an undeniably detrimental impact on global energy security. While the Iranian preference for the “3 plus 3” format might bode well for a political solution if the issues were limited to those of the region, the Nato “springboard” dimension and possible desire to create a distraction for Iran complicate any formula for a negotiated settlement. Today, the term “Zangezur Corridor” is known to only a handful of regional specialists. However, if war breaks out, it is a term that will become a household word, given the scope and scale of the global consequence such a conflict could have.
With the departure of the Armenian community from Karabakh, the situation is now fraught with danger. Prokhvatilov says, “It cannot be completely ruled out that Azerbaijan will occupy the current Syunik Oblast of Armenia by force, as the Third Reich ‘solved the question’ of the Danzig corridor in their own time.” The Russian commentator stresses that he is not comparing the current leaders of Turkey and Azerbaijan to Hitler. He explains, “At the same time, the road through Zangezur to Turkey is like air to both countries; and for the achievement of their goals, they can apply a classical operation under a false flag or by force, of which” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has reportedly spoken on.
Current movements indicate that the situation may be rapidly moving in the direction of force. Aliyev and Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan met in Nakhchivan on September 25. There, they discussed plans to press for expanded links between both countries and the exclave. The two leaders talked about opening connections to the region and between themselves as well as creating a transit corridor through Iran if Armenia opposed having one run through Syunik-Zangezur. However, Iran would be unlikely to agree, and both Azerbaijan and Turkey would be skeptical of Tehran’s reliability in keeping it open (Trend.az, September 26; Vestikavkaza.ru, September 26; Trtrussian.com, September 28; Report.az, September 29; Sovsekretno.ru, October 3; Vpoanalytics.com, October 5; Ritmeurasia.ru, October 7).
Today’s Zangezur problem arose a century ago when Stalin drew borders in the South Caucasus, but it has been exacerbated in recent weeks. This is due to Azerbaijan eliminating the balancing arrangement Stalin put in place: the de facto Armenian exclave of “Nagorno-Karabakh” inside Azerbaijan. Stalin imposed this asymmetrical geography to ensure several situations. First, so that tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan would remain high, allowing Moscow to use its time-tested approach of divide and rule. Second, this arrangement would deprive Turkey of a direct land bridge to Azerbaijan and Turkic Central Asia while giving Armenia an external Soviet border to Iran. Turkey did gain a 13-kilometer connection with Nakhchivan but could reach Azerbaijan only by passing through Armenian or Iranian territory (see EDM, June 12, 2018).
Before this asymmetrical situation was ended last month by Azerbaijan’s recovery of Karabakh, some analysts, including this author, had earlier proposed swapping the two, with Karabakh (Artsakh) going to Armenia and Zangezur going to Azerbaijan (Goble, 1992; Rferl.org, June 8, 2000). Azerbaijan and Turkey were interested, but Armenia, Russia and Iran were opposed. Thus, nothing came of it. Now, Armenia has lost Karabakh and may be threatened in Zangezur with the two Turkic countries in a position to potentially sweep the board.
The Zangezur Corridor had been growing prominence on the agendas of Azerbaijan and Turkey even before Baku’s recent “anti-terrorist” operation. After the Second Karabakh War in 2020, Armenia agreed to reopen transit across the region, including between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan. Yerevan feared that its control over Syunik-Zangezur was its advantage in a situation where neither Moscow, Tehran, nor anyone else would do much to interfere. Thus, the Armenian side, supported at least publicly by Russia and Iran, dragged its feet, infuriating Baku and Ankara. This caused the two powers to talk ever-more openly about the need to push through a corridor, with or without Armenia’s agreement (see EDM April 21, 2021, August 10, 2021, and May 5, 2022; Ng.ru, December 8, 2021; Windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com, January 28, 2022). In the wake of the successful use of force in Karabakh and at a time when Moscow is distracted by its aggression in Ukraine, some in Baku and Ankara are clearly thinking about using force to take Zangezur.
Armenia and Russia are rather concerned with the prospect of fighting over Zangezur (Windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com, June 28, 2022; Vpoanalytics.com, October 10). However, they are far from the only countries that have an interest in what happens in the region and who may be dragged into any future conflict. Iran is the country most obviously worried, as this would expand Turkish influence across its northern border and reduce its ability to influence the South Caucasus. In recent months, it has shown its willingness to deploy its forces near the Azerbaijani border to underscore these concerns (see EDM November 1, 2022, February 10, and March 30). Georgia is also worried, as any change in the status of Zangezur would have implications for its links to the outside world (see EDM, January 25, 2021). At the same time, the countries of Central Asia would become more closely integrated with Ankara if Zangezur passed over to Azerbaijani control, boosting the importance of the Turkic world as Erdogan has promoted (EDM, September 19).
As a shift in the control of Zangezur would affect the wider geopolitics of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, it would also have an impact on the regional influences of China, the European Union, and the West. China would face a much stronger Turkey, limiting its expansion of influence into these regions. The European Union would be troubled by how such a change would threaten Armenia’s security. And the United States, while undoubtedly welcoming the decline in Russian and Iranian influence of Iran and Russia, would be compelled to think about protecting Armenia from any further Turkic advances. Consequently, even if a Turkish military move is not as imminent as some fear, the Zangezur Corridor is becoming a hotspot that all major powers must closely watch.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Raphael Lemkin, a law professor and refugee from Nazi-occupied Europe, through a tremendous force of will, conceived, wrote, and lobbied the United Nations to adopt the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Lemkin, who invented the term genocide, defined it as “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”
What happened to the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh is undoubtedly then a case of genocide by the longtime Islamist dictator of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. And while pushed from the minds of policymakers in Washington thanks to recent events in Gaza, last week GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy was one of the few candidates running for president to acknowledge that what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh is “probably the most under-appreciated atrocity in the world.”
And he’s not wrong: the Biden administration, distracted by its various and sundry overseas projects, including funding and overseeing a war against nuclear-armed Russia in Ukraine and now aiding and abetting the Israeli war on Gaza, met the news with a few strong statements and not much else. Yet there seems more to come for Armenia—and little interest in the West in doing anything to prevent it. The next target of Aliyev’s is likely the southern Armenian province of Syunik, which, if taken by force, as seems to be the plan, would create a land corridor (also known as the Zangezur Corridor) that would connect Azerbaijan proper to its western Nakhchivan enclave. Nakhchivan borders Turkey, and thus would create a profitable connection between the two allies.
It isn’t as if Azerbaijan and its powerful Turkish patron are making any secret of their plan to invade and annex sovereign Armenian territory. In December 2022, Aliyev flatly proclaimed that “present-day Armenia is our land.” The months that followed he went on to declare that “we are implementing the Zangezur corridor, whether Armenia likes it or not.” For his part, Aliyev’s patron, the Islamist Erdogan, praised the ethnic cleansing, describing it as “an operation” that was “completed in a short period of time, with utmost sensitivity to the rights of civilians.”
Things are already underway. Riding a wave of oil revenue, Azerbaijan, which has boosted defense spending to $3.1 billion, is steadily and not-so-stealthily advancing across Armenia's eastern border. In any case, it seems likely they’ll get away with it when the time comes. Why? As Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, recently explained, Azerbaijan is an ally with the West against Iran; it provides energy to Europe and it spends millions on sophisticated Israeli weapons. But such exigencies must not get in the way of the world’s responsibility to stop what is happening before its very eyes: the Armenian genocide of 2023.
As if that weren’t enough, Armenia has been cursed with pusillanimous leadership in the form of a Soros-backed politician named Nikol Pashinyan. Pashinyan, who has served as prime minister since 2018, has what might be described as an almost “Anti-Midas” touch. In the space of five years he has managed to alienate his country’s principal great power supporter, Russia, all the while signaling weakness towards Armenia’s revanchist neighbors, resulting in the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and very likely, more to come. Dr. Pietro Sharakrian, a postdoctoral fellow at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, put it starkly: “Pashinyan’s premiership has been a disaster for the Armenian people.”
There exists, more worryingly still, the possibility of a wider regional war should Azerbaijan roll into Syunik. For one, Iran has expressed opposition to such a move and if Russia wraps up its war in Ukraine, the possibility exists that they will be freed up to step in as well. So one shouldn’t rule out a collision involving the major players in the region: Russia, Iran and Turkey. Sadly, the cruel vicissitudes of history and politics are not yet finished with Armenia.
Signs of troll factories
Signs of bots
Signs of coordinated information campaigns
Edgar Grigoryan, head of the 'DataLocator' project for monitoring, analyzing and processing information on the Internet, reported in an interview with RT that his team had managed to identify about 6,500 accounts on various social networks, in which fake Armenian [users] were spreading deception about the course of the conflict and driving wedges into relations between Armenia and Russia. In 31% of the cases the IP addresses led to Azerbaijan, in 21% of cases to Turkey, and in 19% of cases to the UK. Grigoryan believes that the activity was under centralized management.
On the whole, the cocky sentiments in part of Armenian society, as well as the grievances against Russia within it, can hardly be attributed to bots alone. Real persons, such as comedian Sarik Andreasyan, have also made statements of this kind. At the same time, armies of bots engaged in propaganda and disinformation have become constant participants in the information wars, accompanying real ones. Since Baku made such excellent preparations for the offensive on Artsakh in terms of renting Turkish drones and hiring Turkish specialists, then it would be strange if Baku did not make provisions for hostilities in the Internet and did not target them on the Russian-Armenian military alliance, or rather - on the mutual understanding between peoples. At the same time, Russian users are being used without their knowledge, provoking a negative reaction towards Armenians. And Armenians themselves are taught to think about the unreliability of Russia - the culprit behind their current troubles.
Armenia Became Russia's 'Hostage'
Regardless of what would happen to the army of identified bots… the information war around Armenia is just beginning. "After the Russian peacekeepers were brought into the Karabakh conflict zone, Moscow's of influence on Yerevan has increased significantly. Fate has made Armenia our 'hostage': its dependence on the Russian army in this case is voluntary, but also forced. "From a security point of view, to have a hostage is even more secure than just having an ally. But the rapidity and the quality of changes [in the region] became a challenge for Russia's competitors in the area - both for Turkey, which counted on a different outcome of the war, and for the Western countries, especially the United States and France.
Vladimir Putin has already called on Washington and Paris not to hold grudges, but they still are going to sulk, since a lot of funds were invested in the slow drift of Armenia towards the West. There are a huge number of Western NGOs in Armenia - much more than Russian ones. Not all of them are agents of political influence, the situation is largely explained by the status of Armenians as a transatlantic nation, that is, through NGOs, the Armenian diaspora participates in the life of the homeland. But it is difficult to find a harmless explanation for the fact that the American legation in Yerevan is one of the largest in the world – two thousand employees for a country of three million. In the Russian one, by comparison, there are less than a hundred employees.
The results of these peoples' activities are much more modest than, for example, in Georgia. Although Nikol Pashinyan came to power as the result of another 'color revolution,' as prime minister he revised his anti-Russian attitudes - geography cannot be changed, and it is a harsh mistress: Armenia is surrounded by enemies and can count only on the help of Russia. Now this dependence has become even stronger, but the political crisis in Armenia and the general disappointment in Armenian society open a wide window of opportunities for Western agents of influence.
Before the implementation of the Karabakh agreement, Russia was interested in keeping Pashinyan at the head of Armenia's vertical power – the Kremlin still doesn't trust him, but all other options are much worse. Logically, after [the peace agreement] the prime minister should leave - like the 'Moor who has done his work' and turned to be politically bankrupt. But there is no idea of who can replace him. The Russian authorities have a long and fruitful history of relations with the Republican Party of Armenia, one of the oldest in the country. However, after the resignation of its leader [former PM] Serzh Sargsyan from all government posts, under pressure from the street, Pashinyan, who took power, practically destroyed this structure. In the new elections, the previously dominant force in Armenian politics was unable even to surmount the electoral threshold and was left without representation in parliament.
Now two-thirds of the National Assembly is dominated by Pashinyan's people - the 'My Step Alliance', and almost all of them are quasi 'wooden soldiers,' devoid of political will and individuality. The opposition is represented by two parties – Edmon Marukyan's 'Enlightened Armenia' and Gagik Tsarukyan's 'Prosperous Armenia.' Marukyan is a former associate of Pashinyan, who broke with him after the 'love revolution.' He and his people are rigidly oriented towards Washington and Brussels, and their platform includes such topics as Armenia's withdrawal from the CSTO and joining NATO. Prosperous Armenia' stands for an Alliance with Russia, but the problem is that ideology does not play any role in its case. This is not even a party, but an asset of Tsarukyan, who is considered to be the richest man in the country. The picture will not be complete if we do not specify that the 63 year-old oligarch is a wrestling coach, and that he served a prison term during the Soviet era for robbery and gang rape.
In other words, under certain circumstances, the power in Armenia can go to such people, compared to whom, even the leader of the local Maidan, Pashinyan, is the best figure in Russia's eyes. The fact that he is responsible for the current crisis with unpredictable consequences, and for such an ugly party balance, is a different matter. In the coming months, the pack of Armenian politics will be reshuffled under a new historical reality, where most of Karabakh has been lost, and Turkey and Azerbaijan use the territory of Armenia, which was previously closed to them, for trading with each other. But now comes the time when international players will be investing in the redistribution of forces, hoping to increase their influence in Armenia and push Russia out of there.
The army of bots described above is just one [example] in a series of many, through which [international players] will try to play on public opinion within both countries. Speculating on the Armenians' national distress has not yet proved its effectiveness, but one would not like to learn about it retroactively, when a Russophobic core has already formed within Armenian society."