Our peacekeepers are not mandated to interfere in these hostilities.
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
Fighting has resumed in Karabakh. At 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry announced that they were starting “local counterterrorism measures” in the country’s Karabakh region.
The main goal: disarmament and withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan (according to the constitution of Azerbaijan, Karabakh is its territory). The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called this operation “an aggression against the people of Karabakh.”
As the Azerbaijani authorities stated, they do not attack residential areas, but only deactivate the positions of the Armenian Armed Forces, their firing points, and they do so with high-altitude weapons. In turn, the Karabakh Defense Ministry stated that Azerbaijan is carrying out attacks along the entire line of contact: explosions were reported in Stepanakert and other cities in the region. It is already known that at least two civilians were killed and several injured.
Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda interviewed political scientists and experts from the Caucasus to understand what is really happening currently in the region:
Stanislav Tarasov, expert on the Middle East and the Caucasus:
The transition to such a comprehensive operation, which Azerbaijan has now announced, is anomalous. This is fraught with an escalation towards another Karabakh war. And now the future course of events will depend on how Armenia behaves, on how external actors (Russia, the West, Turkey and Iran) will react to this. The situation is very difficult and tense.
The decision that Russia makes is important. We have the resources to prevent negative events: material, military and political. Our peacekeepers may find themselves hostage to this situation in a very dangerous area.
Sergey Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies:
Now the third Karabakh war has begun there. Azerbaijan is much stronger than Armenia and will defeat it easily. Armenian leader Pashinyan is actually the initiator of this war; he wants, with the help of Armenia’s defeat in the third Karabakh war, to blame Russia for this and completely tear Armenia away from Russia, bring it to France and the United States. A year ago, Pashinyan went to see Macron in Paris and agreed with him on a plan that he is now implementing.
Russia is forced to adopt a passive position. There are Russian peacekeepers there, but Azerbaijan will do everything possible not to touch them. And our peacekeepers have no mandate to interfere in these hostilities.
Alexey Mukhin, director of the Political Information Center:
In recent months, the Armenian leadership, on the one hand, has intimidated the Russian side in every possible way, organized exercises with the United States, did not have any representative in the CSTO, traveled to the European Union, to Brussels , to the United States… In general, they made it clear in every possible way that Russia is not involved here. Taken together, the actions of the Armenian authorities led to a situation where people who wanted to fight now began to do so.
For some reason, Russian peacekeepers are being squeezed onto the front line. Perhaps with the expectation that some kind of pressure, even physical influence, will be imposed on them. And this will drag Russia into a conflict situation. I really hope that the Azerbaijani side has enough wisdom not to commit reckless acts.
