Day: September 10, 2023

One of the most important trends in the post-Soviet space has been the sharp reduction in the relative size of non-titular nations in the newly independent countries. Yet, while Moscow’s opportunities to exploit these national minorities have declined as a result, the Russian authorities still make use of them. They present Moscow as the chief defender of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in these states, employing other ethnic minorities as leverage against the governments involved. In recent years, Moscow’s efforts in this regard have centered most prominently on the Karakalpaks of Uzbekistan and the Gagauz of Moldova (see EDM, June 9, 2020, May 9).

The Kremlin has also shown that it has not forgotten those groups it earlier exploited and reserves the right to turn its attention back to them when it feels necessary. Perhaps the most prominent example of this is the Talysh, a Persian-speaking group in Azerbaijan numbering several hundred thousand there and about the same number in adjoining sections of Iran. Three decades ago, some in Moscow supported this group; however, this minority appears to have been largely ignored in the Kremlin since that time. Even so, over the past several weeks, the Talysh have returned to the center of new tensions in Russia’s relationship with Azerbaijan.

The ostensible cause of this conflict was a memorial held on August 9 in the Urals city of Yekterinburg commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the formation of the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic. This republic was a short-lived state formation within Azerbaijan that unsuccessfully pursued the creation of an autonomous region for the Talysh living there. That effort attracted relatively little popular support at the time and was suppressed within weeks by Baku. The ringleaders were arrested, sentenced to long prison sentences and, in some cases, ultimately expelled to the Netherlands where they later formed a Talysh independence party. But with rare exceptions over the past 30 years, the group has attracted little attention beyond Azerbaijan (see EDM, February 3, 2015; Kavkaz-uzel.eu; Nakanune.ru, August 28; Forum-msk.org, September 1).

That public neglect might have continued even with the Yekaterinburg meeting save for two key factors. First, tensions between Moscow and Baku are mounting over the future of Karabakh and other issues, which is prompting the Kremlin to employ various means to demonstrate its ability to cause trouble in the South Caucasus for anyone who challenges its authority (News.am, August 28). Second, the attendance of Igor Volodin, chair of the Yekaterinburg city council and a member of the United Russia party, at the Talysh memorial created quite a stir, as it seemed to signal that the event had Moscow’s approval.

These tensions and the appearance of a prominent albeit local Russian official prompted Baku to send a diplomat note to Moscow on August 16 protesting what the Azerbaijani government sees as official Russian support for the Talysh and thus opposition to Baku’s efforts to integrate its national minorities. The note was followed by a statement from Azerbaijan’s ambassador in Moscow denouncing Volodin’s appearance and articles in the Azerbaijani media criticizing Russian interference in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs (Ura.news, August 16; News.ru, August 27; Kavkaz-uzel.eu;Nakanune.ru, August 28).

Volodin may have appeared at the meeting entirely on his own initiative to gain support from members of the Talysh minority now living in his city who are voters there. This may very well have been the case, Moscow officials, on August 27, told the Azerbaijani embassy that Volodin would not remain chair of the city duma after the upcoming elections. They assert that he should have consulted with more senior officials before appearing at such a meeting. And the fact that he did not raises questions about his reliability and current position (Ura.news, August 31). These officials undoubtedly hope that they have “extinguished” the controversy, especially given that many more could lose their jobs if the Kremlin decides they, too, have violated official policy (News.ru; 66.ru, August 30).

However, there are compelling reasons to think that this is hardly the whole story. On the one hand, senior Russian politicians do not attend meetings of foreign opposition groups without either explicit direction from their higher-ups or because they believe that what they are doing is consistent with official policy. On the other hand, growing tensions between Moscow and Baku over the Armenian community in Karabakh and its future within Azerbaijan make the Volodin fiasco seem reminiscent of the Kremlin “playing the Talysh card.” After all, by reminding the Azerbaijani authorities that Moscow can cause trouble for Baku if it does not go along with Russia on negotiations with Yerevan, the Kremlin is clearly hopeful that the Azerbaijani government will decide that it is better not to challenge Russia directly lest it face something like a new Mughan movement.

And the potential for such a movement may be even greater now as Russia and Iran may now be on the same side of the issue. Tehran seems to want to rein in Baku and dispatch Talysh groups from within Iran to the southern part of Azerbaijan to cause trouble. Such a move would give the Azerbaijani government another ethnic issue to handle—something it does not need given the international attention to the closure of the Lachin corridor by which the ethnic Armenians in Karabakh had been receiving supplies from Yerevan.

Hence, a Talysh meeting in a Russian city far from the South Caucasus may be about more than it appears on the surface and have consequences far greater than many are inclined to think. At the very least, these possibilities will be on the mind of policymakers in Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Baku and its allies, on the other. And that will remain true even if the diplomatic back-and-forth over the Yekaterinburg meeting quiets over the next several weeks.

A sniper of Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade takes a position during a reconnaissance mission near the eastern city of Bakhmut.

The final declaration of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies in India left Kyiv angry over its refusal to condemn Moscow for its aggression against Ukraine, as new fragments of projectiles appeared to have landed on NATO-member Romania’s territory on September 9.

“We are grateful to the partners who tried to include strong wording in the text,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko posted on Facebook.

“However, in terms of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, [the] G20 has nothing to be proud of,” he wrote.

RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

The final declaration revealed the sharp divisions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with host India able to get attendees to agree to a final statement only after softening language on Moscow’s war on its neighbor.

The statement underlined the “human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine,” but did not mention Russia’s invasion.

“All states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” it said, referencing the UN Charter.

A senior EU diplomat told AP that the bloc had not given up any of its position and said the fact that Moscow had signed on to the agreement was important.

“The option we have is text or no text, and I think it is better [to have a] text. At least if they [the Russians] don’t implement, we know once more that we cannot rely on them,” the diplomat said.

Meanwhile, Kyiv said the toll of the wounded from a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih rose to 74, as Ukrainian forces pressed their slow counteroffensive against Russian forces in southern and eastern regions.

Elsewhere, Romanian officials said they had found new drone fragments on the NATO member’s territory near the Ukrainian border for the second time this week. The Defense Ministry said they were “similar to those used by the Russian Army.”

President Klaus Iohannis said in a statement that the fragments indicated “an absolutely unacceptable violation of the sovereign airspace of Romania, a NATO ally, with real risks to the security of Romanian citizens in the area.”

Iohannis added that he had a phone call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to inform him of the new finding and that he had received assurances of the alliance’s support.

Moscow did not comment on the report.

Photo Gallery:

Eighteen months into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine is struggling to build momentum in the counteroffensive taking place over three fronts, with the primary push coming south of Orikhiv, in the southern Zaporizhzhya region.

While some Western allies have expressed frustration with the slow pace of the effort, now in its third month, Ukrainian troops have shown glimpses of success in breaching the Russian defensive lines.

Kyiv also claimed “partial success” in the east, near the obliterated Donetsk region city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured earlier this year.

And in Crimea, Russian-installed authorities in the city of Simferopol called a blaze at a military post a “domestic fire” and not the result of an attack by Ukrainian drones.

Full details of the blaze were not immediately available. Kyiv has not commented.

A main goal of Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive is to drive toward the peninsula and eventually retake the region, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Kyiv estimates that Russia has deployed more than 420,000 soldiers in areas it controls in the east and south of Ukraine, deputy intelligence chief Vadym Skibitskiy said on September 9.

“The Russian Federation has concentrated more than 420,000 servicemen in our territories that are temporarily occupied, including Crimea,” Skibitskiy said at a conference in Kyiv. The figure “does not include the Russian National Guard and other special units that maintain occupation authorities on our territories.”

Ukraine is almost entirely dependent on Western military aid and equipment to wage its defense against the Russian invasion. Kyiv has repeatedly pressed the United States and other allies for more powerful weaponry, such as F-16 fighter jets, which could be put into service next year.

Kyiv has also sought supplies of long-range, U.S.-designed Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a greater distance for striking at Russian targets.

The United States has been reluctant to send the weapons, but unnamed U.S. officials told ABC News that the systems, known as ATACMS, or “attack-ems,” were likely to be supplied in the end.

“They are coming,” one anonymous official told ABC News on September 8. A second official said the missiles were “on the table” and likely to be included in an upcoming weapons package.

Japan’s foreign minister arrived in Kyiv on September 9 in an unannounced visit aimed at showing support for Ukraine.

Yoshimasa Hayashi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and agreed to begin talks on potential security guarantees and to cooperate on reconstructing Ukraine’s economy, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.

Japan has joined the West in supporting Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia. However, it does not allow the supply of weapons, under long-standing pacifist government policies.

It’s the first visit by a Japanese foreign minister to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in a joint news conference thanked Hayashi for his country’s support and that he wanted the foreign minister “and the entire Japanese people to know that the Ukrainian people remember and will never forget the humanitarian aid.”

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Armenia

The European Union has confirmed that its monitoring mission in Armenia was targeted by Azerbaijani fire. On August 15, Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported that the Azerbaijani armed forces fired at EU observers near Verin Shorzha village in the Gegharkunik province. The European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) denied the report, stating that none of its patrols had been the target of shooting. However, after a video of an EU patrol sheltering in a bunker appeared on social media, the EU released a “Correcting Statement,” stating, “We confirm that EUMA patrol has been present to the shooting incident in our area of responsibility.” 

In other EU news, the EUMA has denied Azerbaijani claims of Armenian military buildup along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. The EUMA said, based on its daily monitors of the security situation along the border, it saw “no unusual military movement or buildup, especially at the entrance to the Lachin Corridor.” On August 14, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said that a “large amount of weapons, military equipment and personnel of the armed forces of Armenia have been accumulating along the un-demarcated border with Azerbaijan.” Armenian officials called the statement disinformation and reiterated that Armenia has no troops in Artsakh.

Azerbaijan

Journalists and civil society groups have directed mounting criticisms at RFE/RL’s Azerbaijan service, accusing the organization of bullying, financial mismanagement and favoritism. In the past two years, at least six journalists have been fired from the organization, while three have resigned in protest. Former employees have accused Ilkin Mammadov, the head of RFE/RL’s Azerbaijan service, of hiring journalists close to the government. Mammadov has led the organization from Prague since 2015, when Azerbaijan’s government shut down the Baku office. RFE/RL dismissed the accusations, stating it is “deeply concerned about unsubstantiated claims circulating on social media impugning our journalism in Azerbaijan.”

Georgia

The American band The Killers is facing backlash from fans after inviting a Russian fan onstage during a concert in Georgia. Lead singer Brandon Flowers invited the fan onstage to play the drums. Flowers announced that the fan was Russian, and asked the crowd if it was okay to let him play. The crowd booed and whistled, cursing Russia and shouting, “Russia is an occupier!” Some concertgoers left the arena in protest. Flowers said the show should “bring people together” and that he sees the concertgoers as his “brothers and sisters.” The Killers later released an apology statement, stating that its message had not been political and “could be misconstrued.” Georgians overwhelmingly view Russia as the occupier of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An Azerbaijani soldier cries “Allahu Akbar” from atop the steeple of an Armenian church after breaking its cross off.

The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.

Several watchdog organizations—including the Association of Genocide Scholars, Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention—are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was annexed by and brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.

Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to claim Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Although it had been Armenian for over two thousand years, and still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region. (See “15 Artsakh War Myths Perpetuated By Mainstream Media.”)

Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, though the dispute clearly did not concern it. It dispatched sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya—including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned—to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.

One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)

All these Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (see here and here), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan claiming a significant portion of Artsakh.

Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor—the only route between Artsakh and the outside world. A recent report by Dutch journalist, Sonja Dahlmans, summarizes the situation since:

In the extreme southeastern part of Europe, known as the Caucasus, a silent genocide is looming. The Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia to Artsakh, the region in Azerbaijan where mainly Christian Armenians live, has been closed by the government for eight months. Supermarket shelves are empty; there is hardly any food, fuel, or medicines for the 120,000 Armenian Christians who live there, including 30,000 children and 20,000 seniors.

At the time of this writing [Aug. 24, 2023], a convoy of food and medicines has been standing in front of the border since July 25 [a month], but the International Red Cross is not allowed access to the inhabitants of Artsakh. According to journalists living in the area, most residents only get one meal a day. People in Artsakh queue for hours at night for bread, waiting for their daily rations. At the same time, sources within Artsakh report shooting at Armenians trying to harvest the land.

… [I]n all probability bread will also soon be unavailable due to the shortage of fuel… Bakers can no longer heat their ovens. Last week, a 40-year-old Armenian man died of malnutrition. A pregnant woman lost her child because there was no fuel for transport to the hospital.

Separate reports tell of, in one instance, 19 humanitarian trucks “loaded with some 360 tons of medicine and food supplies” that have been parked for weeks and prevented from crossing.

This, of course, would not be the first time Turks starve Armenians to death (as the following picture of a Turkish administrator taunting emaciated Armenian children with a piece of bread in 1915 makes clear).

On August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, framed the situation well:

There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.

The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’

There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.

Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976.

Similarly, after going on a fact-finding mission to Armenia, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback referred to the blockade as the latest attempt at “religious cleansing” of Christian Armenia:

Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s backing, is really slowly strangling Nagorno-Karabakh. They’re working to make it unlivable so that the region’s Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that’s what’s happening on the ground.

Muslim regimes regularly make life intolerable for Christian minorities in an effort to get them to abandon their properties and leave. Just a few weeks ago, the president of Iraq revoked a decade-old decree that granted Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako powers over Christian endowment affairs. “This is a political maneuver to seize the remainder of what Christians have left in Iraq and Baghdad and to expel them,” said Diya Butrus Slewa, a human rights activist from Ainkawa. “Unfortunately, this is a blatant targeting of the Christians and a threat to their rights.”

In Artsakh, the situation seems to be worse: just as no one can get in, no one can apparently get out. Azerbaijan is holding those 120,000 Armenians captive, starving and abusing them at will.

In his testimony, Brownback said that this latest genocide is being “perpetrated with U.S.-supplied weaponry and backed by Turkey, a member of NATO.” If the U.S. does not act, “we will see again another ancient Christian population forced out of its homeland.”

Not only has U.S. diplomacy been ineffective for the besieged Armenians; it has actually exacerbated matters. According to one report,

[T]he only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan’s aggression….

For over eight months, the region’s 120,000 Indigenous Armenians—who declared their independence in the early 1990s following escalating violence and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan—have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and water in what is nothing less than genocide by attrition….

The same week peace talks began in Washington, Baku [capital of Azerbaijan] tightened its blockade by establishing a military checkpoint at the Lachin Corridor. And when Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began shelling the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been abducted by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment.

This is the predictable consequence of Washington’s insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. This has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation, and forcing Armenia to negotiate with a gun to its head…

Washington has also actively strengthened Azerbaijan’s position by indicating support for Artsakh’s integration into Azerbaijan. Given Azerbaijan’s state-sponsored dehumanization of Armenians, the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated during and since the 2020 war, and its own disastrous domestic human rights record—it is impossible to imagine Armenians could ever live freely under Azerbaijan’s rule.

For Azerbaijan, this disingenuous participation in negotiations has allowed it to uphold the veneer of cooperation while engaging in conduct that has immeasurably set back the prospects of a durable peace.

Clearly, negotiating simply bought the Azerbaijanis more time in which to starve the Armenians, and possibly another way for the United States to pretend it was “doing something” without actually doing anything — apart from allowing more savagery.

Indeed, part of the façade of diplomacy is that Azerbaijan insists that the Christian Armenians of Artsakh are being treated no differently than Muslim Azerbaijanis—since all are citizens of Azerbaijan. One report sheds light on this farce:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials have declared that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are citizens of Azerbaijan, seeming to back prior statements of Azerbaijani authorities pledging to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians.

But actions speak much louder. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War three decades ago arose following waves of anti-Armenian pogroms. Azerbaijan is now one of the most repressive and autocratic countries in the world, scoring among the lowest in the world on freedom and democracy indexes—in stark contrast to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Aliyev (who inherited his post from his father) has confessed to having started the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, and proudly admitted that a generation of Azerbaijanis has been brought up to deeply despise Armenians (here and here).

He denies the Armenian Genocide (alongside Turkey) and negates the existence of Armenians as a nation, including their history, culture, and right to be present anywhere in the region.

No Armenian, not even a foreign national of ethnic Armenian descent or anyone with an Armenian sounding name, is allowed to enter Azerbaijan.

The results are clear: nearly every Armenian who fell into Azerbaijani captivity after the [Sept-Nov] 2020 war has been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, decapitated and/or murdered. None of these acts have ever been punished. To the contrary, those who kill Armenians receive medals and are glorified in Azerbaijan. It is no wonder that Armenians are petrified and cannot fathom living under Azerbaijan’s authority.

Aside from the Lachin corridor crisis, a recent 12-page report documents the systematic destruction of ancient churches, crosses, Christian cemeteries, and other cultural landmarks on land—Artsakh—that historically belonged to the world’s oldest Christian nation, Armenia.

One example is the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi, Artsakh. First, Azerbaijan bombed the church during the 2020 war, an act Human Rights Watch labeled a “possible war crime.” Then, after Azerbaijan seized the region, officials claimed to be “restoring” the church, when in fact its dome and cross were removed, making the building look less like a church. As one report notes,

The ‘case’ of Shushi is indicative of the well-documented history of Armenian cultural and religious destruction by Azerbaijan. From 1997 to 2006, Azerbaijan systematically obliterated almost all traces of Armenian culture in the Nakhichevan area, which included the destruction of medieval churches, thousands of carved stone crosses (“khachkars”), and historical tombstones.

Dahlmans also reports

on an Armenian church in Artsakh that disappeared after Azerbaijan’s victory in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020). During the victory, Azerbaijani soldiers pose on top of the church shouting “Allahu Akhbar” [image above]… [T]he church has been completely wiped out and only a few stone remains remain as a reminder… The Western press rarely writes about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Most reactions follow the line that it is not a religious conflict, but a claim by two countries over a disputed territory. Given the many examples that exist in which precisely religious buildings, tombs and inscriptions are systematically destroyed, it is difficult to maintain that this is the case.

One of the main reasons that Armenia finds itself standing alone against this genocidal onslaught is due to the West’s “desire to maintain favorable relations with Azerbaijan given its role as a European energy partner [and this] has outweighed any purported commitment to upholding human rights—bolstering Azerbaijan’s aggression.”

It is these same priorities that have made Russia, once the defender of all Orthodox Christian nations in the East, more apathetic than might be expected. According to another report,

Azerbaijan was able to impose this blockade because Russian peacekeepers allow them to do so. The Russians are there as part of a ceasefire agreement ending the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The same agreement, inked by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, guarantees access along that now-blocked road. Although Russia is often portrayed as Armenia’s patron, the reality is more complicated. Russia’s largest oil company owns a 19.99% share of Azerbaijan’s largest natural gas field. It is not so surprising then that Armenians in Artsakh demonstrated against Russian inaction after the killings of their police officials.

Longtime Armenian-activist, Lucine Kasbarian, author of Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People, sums up the situation:

We who are Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Coptic bitterly know just how this will end. It’s deja vu all over again. Again and again, we’ve seen the deceit and brutality, received the chilling reports, warnings, graphic videos, open letters and petitions from alarmed genocide scholars. But alas, NATO, Islamic supremacism, gas and oil are going to take precedence over life and liberty once again unless high-powered vigilantism can save the day.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.