MOSCOW Azerbaijan has apparently achieved victory in the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in one day: the Armenian leadership of the region announced on Wednesday that Armenian forces would lay down their arms.
Russian peacekeepers brokered a ceasefire between the Armenian leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan commented on Wednesday that the Armenian government had nothing to do with the ceasefire agreement.
Pashinyan also reiterated his claim that there are no official Armenian armed forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, contrary to what Azerbaijan says.
Pashinyan’s government has tried to avoid that the military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh that Azerbaijan started on Tuesday would lead to an open war between the countries.
Pashinyan’s government has already made it clear that it is ready to keep Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, as long as the position of the Armenian population in the region is secured in the negotiations.
Poor Armenia is badly inferior militarily compared to Azerbaijan, which is rich in oil and natural gas. Azerbaijan also has a strong ally Turkey behind it.
This was already evident in the 2020 war, where Azerbaijan took control of significant areas on the edges of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia, previously considered to be the most important supporter of Armenia has followed Azerbaijan’s actions quite passively along the way.
Based on the 2020 war peace agreement, Russia has had troops as peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh. These forces have hardly intervened in the events as Azerbaijan has tightened its grip on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on Wednesday that legally it is Azerbaijan’s actions on its own soil. According to Peskov, the Armenian government has admitted that Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan.
The Russian leadership is focused on the war against Ukraine, and it is not very eager to help Pashinyan’s government anyway.
Nikol Pashinyan came to power in the elections in 2018when large-scale demonstrations had forced the then prime minister Serzh Sargsyan to resign.
Pashinyan called those events the Velvet Revolution of Armenia. It hardly aroused any warm feelings towards him in the Kremlin.
President Vladimir Putin the administration is known to be allergic to any movement that hints at a “color revolution”.
After Russia mostly watched from the sidelines as fighting broke out on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in September 2022, Armenia has begun to distance itself from the Russian-led Collective Security Organization CSTO.
Armenia is a member of the CSTO, Azerbaijan is not, so Armenia would have liked more help from the organization than sending a small monitoring mission to the border of the countries.
Since then, the Armenian leadership has tried seek support from the West.
On September 11, Armenian and American forces began a military exercise near the Armenian capital, Yerevan. 85 American and 175 Armenian soldiers participated in the exercise.
As might be expected, Russia reacted to the military exercises with irritation. Azerbaijan was most obviously not deterred by the exercise, as it launched its offensive operation in Nagorno-Karabakh while the exercise was still ongoing.
The Russian leadership has been stroking the back of the hair as well, that Pashinyan’s government intends to bring Armenia under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the beginning of September, the government sent the accession to the ICC for approval by the parliament.
The ICC has issued a wanted notice for President Putin. When the Supreme Court of Armenia declared in March that ICC membership does not conflict with the Armenian constitution, Russia imposed an import ban on Armenian dairy products.
At the beginning of September, Prime Minister Pashinyan’s wife Anna Hakobja the spouse of the President of Ukraine visited Kiev Olena Zelenska from the invitation.
Russia probably hopes that Pashinyan’s regime will fall To the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the spirit of blame the victim, Russian propagandists have gleefully blamed the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh on Pashinyan.
News site Meduza says that he got hold of it Kremlin instructions to the media: Armenia and its “western partners” must be blamed for everything. At the same time, Russian peacekeepers should be praised for the evacuation of civilians.
Editor-in-chief of the state media company Rossija Segondja and the RT channel Margarita Simonyan has particularly blasted Pashinjan on his Telegram channel:
– The rulers of Armenia handed over the Armenian holy place with their own hands. All that remains is to announce that there was no Armenian Genocide, and Pashinyan’s mission in this world has been fulfilled. Judas’ fate cannot be envied.
Simonjan, who himself has Armenian roots, derided Pashinjan’s western aspirations.
– Pashinyan demands that Russian peacekeepers protect Karabakh. What about NATO? Doesn’t it protect?
Simonjan is so right, that Western countries have mainly expressed their concern about the situation. There have been no concrete actions.
Cynically, one can think that Azerbaijan’s oil and natural gas are very valuable to Western powers in a situation where the West is trying to limit Russia’s energy exports with its sanctions.
Even if Russia gets Armenia favorable leadership, its grip on the situation in the South Caucasus seems badly weakened in light of recent events.
The other countries in the region will certainly draw their conclusions from how weakly Russia has supported its traditional ally Armenia in recent stages.
There are competitors for Russia’s influence in the region, such as Turkey, which supports Azerbaijan, and Iran and China.
Geopolitical twists don’t help The Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, whose future is now shrouded in darkness.
The threat of ethnic cleansing also hangs in the air, as they have been seen on both sides during the conflict that has lasted for more than three decades.
It is not easy for poor Armenia with a population of three million to cope with a new large number of refugees.
Azerbaijan has taken full advantage a situation where the attention of Western countries is also focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Leader of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has so far gotten his way. Often hunger increases when eating.
The danger is that the military actions of Azerbaijan, which is conscious of its strength, will not stop there.
Not to make things too simple, Azerbaijan has an autonomous enclave called Nakhichevan, located separately, surrounded by Armenia, Turkey and Iran.
Azerbaijan would like to ensure unimpeded passage to this region through Armenia.
On the other hand, the transit corridor demanded by Azerbaijan would threaten to close Armenia’s free access to the Iranian border.
The threat is that a victory in Nagorno-Karabakh will tempt Azerbaijan to resort to military force on this issue as well.