Waves of anti-Azerbaijani provocation from Deutsche Welle Fake disguised as a film

The information war against Azerbaijan never stops. Most recently, the Russian-language service of the German media group Deutsche Welle (DW Russian) attempted a crude manipulation, releasing a so-called “documentary” titled “The South Caucasus: On the Edge of Fear and Hope?” — a product that bears little relation to responsible, professional journalism.

It should be emphasised that equating all three countries of the region is fundamentally misleading and, in most cases, deliberately manipulative. The statuses and achievements of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia differ significantly.

Azerbaijan is the only post-Soviet state that has successfully restored its territorial integrity through both military and political means, ending an occupation that lasted more than a quarter of a century.

By contrast, Armenia, for nearly 30 years, consistently ignored international law and kept internationally recognised territories of a neighbouring state under occupation. Today, it is a country that has lost a war, while a portion of its population still clings to revenge fantasies. Meanwhile, Georgia has yet to restore its territorial integrity. These are the unambiguous facts.

Now let’s examine the content of this so-called “film.” The main protagonist is a woman from Georgia, who begins her story by recalling that the August 2008 Russian–Georgian war caught her at the age of six. One might expect that this experience would give her an understanding of aggression, occupation, and separatism — the very realities Azerbaijan has faced due to Armenia. Yet…

Instead, she somehow manages to accuse Azerbaijan — the country that actually suffered from occupation — of “always starting wars” over the past ten years. Notably, she makes no mention of the First and Second Karabakh Wars or the one-day counter-terrorist operation in 2023, all of which took place on Azerbaijani territory. This omission alone makes it clear that what we are witnessing is not objective journalism, but blatant anti-Azerbaijani propaganda.

However, the story takes an even more bizarre turn when an Armenian woman named Zhanna appears on screen. No, she is not a flight attendant — she is a lawyer and a lecturer at an Armenian university. One can only feel sympathy for her students, as Zhanna revealed that many of her friends participated in the 44-day war of 2020 — the very conflict in which Azerbaijan exercised its right to restore its territorial integrity under Article 51 of the UN Charter (the right to self-defence). From a legal standpoint, Zhanna’s friends, who fought on the territory of another state against that state, were committing a crime — a fact that is entirely clear.

The display of absurdity did not end there. Zhanna went on to say that she enrolled in the “training centre” VOMA. The next speaker, Vartanov, the vice-president of this organisation, stated that by 2020, 2,000 people had completed training at VOMA, and today that number exceeds 11,000. He proudly declared that he lives — and encourages others to live — by the principle: “The nation is an army, and the country is a fortress.”

Indeed. Many of us have already witnessed the reality of this “fortress army,” including the mass retreat of over 10,000 Armenian soldiers from the battlefield during the 44-day war.

However, in light of Vartanov’s statements, a perfectly reasonable question arises: “Why is there a need to train Armenian citizens for war when official Yerevan regularly claims that it is committed to signing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan as soon as possible?”

Furthermore, VOMA includes individuals who participated in the First Karabakh War and the 44-day war, including officers from Armenia’s intelligence services. In 2020, the official website of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General reported that a criminal case had been opened against VOMA. Later, the Azerbaijani state repeatedly drew attention to this issue at the highest levels. For example, in March 2023, in a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the UN Secretary-General, it was emphasised that Armenia has still not complied with the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dated December 7, 2021.

“In blatant disregard of the mandatory measure indicated by the Court, organisations promoting racial hatred against Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis, such as the Armenia-based organisations VOMA and POGA, continue to promote discrimination and hatred on the grounds of ethnic and national origin against Azerbaijanis,” the letter stated.

However, as we can see, nothing has changed — Armenia still has not complied with the aforementioned ICJ decision. Furthermore, the very existence of VOMA, which openly flaunts its stated goals and objectives, casts serious doubt on the sincerity of the Armenian authorities’ claims regarding their commitment to peace with Baku.

Journalists at Deutsche Welle would do well to consider these facts, rather than broadly promoting this armed group. Such coverage can hardly be described as anything other than an information provocation. For this reason, it seems reasonable to assert that imposing a ban on entry into Azerbaijan for those responsible for producing this fake “documentary” would be a fair and proportionate response to DW Russian’s actions against the country.