"Armenians put on disgusting performance with 'famine' in Karabakh" Ukrainian expert on Caliber.Аz

The misoneism of Armenian politicians and the political course of Yerevan in general, which is increasingly deviating from the agenda of peace negotiations, has recently acquired more and more grotesque forms. Yerevan is literally aimed at creating tension in the South Caucasus, putting aside any actions to prepare a peace treaty with Baku.

However, Yervan’s representatives continue to spread tall tales about famine and even genocide in the Armenian-populated part of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh economic region from all possible tribunes. Baku is, of course, exposed as guilty of all these "horrors".

At the same time, what Yerevan itself is doing cannot be called good intentions – the country is intensively arming itself, buying military equipment abroad, and a ten-thousand-strong group of Armenian military and militants is holed up in Karabakh, periodically staging provocations.

What is Armenia trying to achieve with such a reactionary policy and what consequences can it lead to? Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military-political observer of the Information Resistance group, shares his point of view on this issue with Caliber.Az.

- It seems that Yerevan, as if forgetting the lesson it was taught by the 44-day war, is once again testing Azerbaijan's patience. What does Kyiv think about these risky Armenian games?

- Frankly speaking, since 2020, when the 44-day war ended and the movement towards a very shaky peace began, I do not believe that any peace treaty will be signed and in general, any solution to the Karabakh issue is possible in the political and diplomatic format in which it was tried to be considered. Armenia is actually interested only in delaying the resolution of all issues as much as possible.

Azerbaijan is now using exclusively diplomatic methods, and the presence of Russian peacekeepers significantly limits any other measures of influence on Armenia. But logically, taking into account the results of the 44-day war and the agreements concluded, relations should have been normalised, steps should have been taken in the diplomatic plane, a very important process of demarcation of the border should have been implemented, taking into account the return of the territories that were occupied by Armenia for thirty years to Azerbaijan. But Yerevan still violates almost each point of the obligations, and I do not see any other solution to this issue, except by force, after the Russian peacekeepers are withdrawn from Karabakh.

Of course, this is the most negative scenario, but there is simply no other way to fully restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. First, it is because Armenia is sabotaging all diplomatic initiatives coming not only from Baku, but also from international mediators, particularly the European Union.

- How can we describe the political spectacle on the Lachin border checkpoint, which is being played out in an openly anti-Azerbaijani manner by Armenian figures in the international arena?

- Indeed, I would like to mention separately this whole farce with the "hunger strikers in Khankandi", "starving Karabakh" and everything like that. As a Ukrainian, whose country survived the Holodomor, I perceive such statements, including talk about the genocide that allegedly takes place there, very sceptically. It is enough to look at the photos that are distributed in social networks by the residents of Khankandi themselves to understand that there is no food shortage there. There is no smell of "genocide" in the Armenian interpretation, so to speak. There is simply no isolation as such. Therefore, I personally evaluate all these manipulations from a negative position and even believe that it is immoral. If we compare the situation when millions of Ukrainians died of hunger in the 1930s with what is happening in Khankandi, then this is a disgusting Armenian performance in which such concepts as "morality" and "humanism" are juggled. It is unacceptable to do such a thing for such base purposes.

- What do you think about Yerevan's attempts to pump up its "military muscles" again? How significant can they be to make a difference in the confrontation with Azerbaijani weapons? And in general, what is Yerevan hoping for today - a new war?

- Armenia has found itself in a dead end, Russia has no opportunity to support it in military-technical issues. What did the Russian Federation supply Armenia with for many years, at the same time issuing loans, the non-repayment of which was periodically forgiven to Yerevan as a gift? First, it was armoured vehicles, artillery and rocket artillery, air defence equipment. Russia itself is in critical need of all this now, while fighting in Ukraine. Russia now has an acute shortage of tanks, and Moscow is forced to send such ancient vehicles as T-62, T-54, and T-55 into the war zone. The share of self-propelled artillery units in the Russian army has fallen seriously because they do not have time to take them out of preservation and restore them. And more and more towed howitzers D-20, D-30, Hyacinth B and the same MSTA B are appearing. Such real historical archaisms as the 153-millimetre howitzer D-1 of the 1943-1947 year of manufacture are also appearing in Ukraine.

And what supplies of Russian weapons to Armenia can we talk about against this background, if the Russian defence industry is in a situation of severe crisis and is forced to use the services of the same Iran - anti-tank missile systems, drones Shahed-136 and even body armour and helmets are supplied by Iranian military aviation through the Caspian Sea to Russia. Therefore, Moscow is now a complete outsider in terms of any large-scale arms deliveries.

Armenia suffered colossal losses in armament and was never able to recover. And who can help her with this now? Of course, Iran, which can meet Armenia’s needs not only with drones and kamikaze drones, but, for example, with its modified Soviet–made T-72 tanks, Soviet–made ammunition and Soviet-calibre artillery has been established - all this can come to Armenia taking into account their bilateral relations. India is also joining in, not without the support, by the way, of Russian intermediaries. The Indian military-industrial complex has many similarities with the Russian one, and its tank industry is based on Soviet-Russian developments. The same pattern is observed in aviation and artillery. Similar calibres, ammunition, weapons systems – all this makes cooperation between India and Armenia in the military and technical aspects quite logical.

Therefore, if we compare Azerbaijani and Armenian weapons, it should be noted that the Armenian defense, unlike the Azerbaijani one, is sufficiently unified due to its traditional connection with supplies from Russia. And you have samples of weapons from suppliers from different countries. However, this is a plus for Azerbaijan, because foreign arms companies rely on highly technical and high-tech developments. Therefore, we can talk about the absolute superiority of the technological order of the weapons of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces over the Armenian one. This distinguishes high-quality weapons from low-quality ones, which becomes clear in the combat zone. In Ukraine, this is now very clearly visible, in particular in the combat zone in the Zaporizhzhia region. For example, the Russian army, despite serious losses in this area, has a noticeably large number of artillery installations. There is less artillery in the Ukrainian army, but the range of destruction is greater, the accuracy is higher.

Meanwhile, as soon as Gen Popov, commander of the 58th combined-arms Russian army, said that Ukrainian troops were superior to Russian in counter-battery fighting and the Russians were suffering colossal losses from Ukrainian artillery strikes, he was simply removed from command and sent to Syria. Moscow does not need such a truth. But if our qualitative component, as a rule, prevails over the quantitative one, then Armenia does not even have quantitative superiority now, and we are not talking about qualitative at all. Therefore, Armenia is now working hard to achieve at least some parity or even superiority in some positions in the weapons sphere.

- How do Kyiv assess Yerevan's position regarding Moscow's war in Ukraine, because Armenia even staged a real media promotion of this topic?

- Armenia's position on this issue has always, let's say, puzzled official Kyiv. There have been no scandalous situations at the diplomatic level, but if we talk about support, it is obvious that official Yerevan provides Ukraine with much less political support than official Baku. It's just impossible to compare. But in Armenia, where the pro-Russian line is generally maintained, voices in support of Ukraine still sometimes sound. This, by the way, is directly related to the growing wave of anti-Russian sentiment in this country, which is turning into a steady trend.

But even taking into account the criticism of Russia that Pashinyan has recently allowed, the Armenian political elite continues to remain loyal to Moscow and supports its propaganda against Ukraine. But I think that despite such a position of Yerevan, official Kyiv does not intend to radically spoil relations with Armenia yet.