The crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh has come amid a sharp deterioration in the relationship between historic allies Armenia and Russia, and has been amplified by sometimes incendiary commentary from prominent individuals in Moscow. <\/p>\n
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other officials in Yerevan have accused Russia of failing to deliver on its security commitments to Armenia, after Azerbaijani forces launched what it called \u201canti-terrorist\u201d operations against the ethnic Armenian community in Nagorno-Karabakh, before a ceasefire was agreed Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Pashinyan criticized Russia for not alerting him to Azerbaijan\u2019s military plans, saying it was \u201cstrange and perplexing\u201d that his government did not receive \u201cany information from our partners in Russian about that operation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Armenia has for decades trusted Russia to act as its sole security guarantor, but has recently grown frustrated by what it sees as the ineffectiveness of Russia\u2019s peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was laid bare on Tuesday. But Russia has in turn been angered by Armenia\u2019s attempts to forge new international partnerships, most recently through holding joint military exercises with the United States. <\/p>\n
Armenia\u2019s Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijani aggression, according to state media Armenpress. <\/p>\n
The Kremlin rejected Armenia\u2019s criticisms of the Russian peacekeeping contingent. \u201cSuch accusations against us are unfounded,\u201d spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Ties between Moscow and Yerevan have been fraying for some time but in recent weeks have worsened significantly. Earlier this month, Armenia sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time, with Pashinyan\u2019s wife, Anna Hakobyan, making an official visit to Kyiv. <\/p>\n
Russian commentators and politicians have been highly critical of Armenia\u2019s leadership, at times mocking it for its inability to protect ethnic Armenians beyond its border \u2013 and expecting Russian peacekeepers to defend Nagorno-Karabakh where Yerevan cannot. <\/p>\n
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is among the most vocal critics. In a Telegram post, he derided Pashinyan. \u201cHe lost a war [a reference to the 2020 conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia] but in some strange way stayed in place. Then he decided to shift the responsibility for his talentless defeat onto Russia. Then he rejected a piece of the territory of his own country. Then he decided to flirt with NATO.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cGuess what fate awaits him,\u201d Medvedev added. <\/p>\n
The prominent Russian military blogger Rybar said Armenia was over reliant on Russia to provide security for Nagorno-Karabakh. \u201cActions are expected from Russian peacekeepers \u2013 who are consistently discredited by pro-Pashinyan nationalists,\u201d Rybar commented. <\/p>\n
Russia purports to provide security to Armenia through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of post-Soviet states that includes Armenia but excludes Azerbaijan. <\/p>\n
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state television network RT, wrote on Twitter \u201cKarabakh. Tragic, hopeless and predictable. The Armenian authorities handed over the Armenian shrine with their own hands\u2026 The fate of Judas is unenviable.\u201d <\/p>\n
Simonyan also wrote on Telegram about protests in Yerevan. \u201cThe crowd chants: \u2018Nikol is a traitor.\u2019 They\u2019ve woken up. The Armenian, who came to power with anti-Russian slogans \u2013 is a traitor by definition. A traitor of Armenian interests, not Russian. Russia will get by without Armenia. Armenia without Russia \u2013 no.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pashinyan came to power in 2018 on the back of Armenia\u2019s \u201cVelvet Revolution\u201d \u2013 an outpouring of anger against lingering corruption and cronyism in the former Soviet republic. <\/p>\n
Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent anchors on Russian television, also slammed Pashinyan\u2019s government. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe scum that shouts something against Lavrov or Putin \u2013 why they do not want to go and die for Karabakh where Armenians always lived?\u2026 No, they want some Russian Ivan to go and die instead of them,\u201d Solovyov said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhere was Armenian army? They are training with Americans. So how did Americans help you?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n
The independent Russian media project Meduza said it had obtained a guidance document from the Kremlin circulated Tuesday to state media outlets, which recommended blaming Armenia and Western countries for the aggravation of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, rather than Azerbaijan. <\/p>\n
Meduza said that according to the document the Kremlin also stressed that \u201cthe Armenian leadership recognized the sovereignty of Azerbaijan over Karabakh,\u201d but that Pashinyan had been pushed towards a more radical stance by his Western partners \u201cwho should fully share with him the responsibility for the consequences.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
The crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh has come amid a sharp deterioration in the relationship between historic allies Armenia and Russia, and has been amplified by sometimes incendiary commentary from prominent individuals in Moscow. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other officials in Yerevan have accused Russia of failing to deliver on its security commitments to Armenia, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}