Update: SecState Blinken warned US lawmakers that Azerbaijan may invade Armenia itself in the "coming weeks"

[TUFKAK]

Azerbaijan launches operation against Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh | CNN

EDITION.CNN.COM

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Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Armenian media and local...

 

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Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Armenian media and local authorities reported heavy bombardment of the regional capital of Stepanakert.

 

Two civilians, including a child, were killed, and 11 people were injured, amid shelling by the Azerbaijan military, according to Gegham Stepanyan, the Ombudsman in Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, has been the cause of two wars between the neighbors in the past three decades, most recently in 2020.

 

Tensions have been simmering around the region for months, after Azerbaijani troops blockaded the Lachin corridor in December, cutting off the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and preventing the import of food to its roughly 120,000 inhabitants.

 

Russian peacekeepers, who deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire, have been tasked with preventing a fresh conflict breaking out. But Moscow has been accused of being unable or unwilling to intervene to protect Armenia, its long-term ally, in the face of continuing aggression from Azerbaijan.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I wonder if the joint American/Armenian military training exercise that began last week is still ongoing?  It was scheduled for 10 days so it technically should still be in effect.

 

Armenia-US military exercise kicks off near Yerevan | Reuters

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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Armenia and the United States began a joint military training exercise on Monday, both sides said, at a time of high tension in Armenian relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan.

 

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Armenia and the United States began a joint military training exercise on Monday, both sides said, at a time of high tension in Armenian relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan.

 

The 10-day "Eagle Partner" exercise involves 85 U.S. and 175 Armenian soldiers and is designed to prepare the Armenians to take part in international peacekeeping missions. It is taking place at two training grounds near the capital Yerevan.

 

The Armenian defence ministry said on Monday that "the purpose of the exercise is to increase the level of interoperability of the unit participating in international peacekeeping missions within the framework of peacekeeping operations, to exchange best practices in control and tactical communication."

 

Though small in scale, the drill has irked Russia, which has a military base in Armenia and regards itself as the prime security guarantor in the region.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Based on the terms of the ceasefire, it genuinely appears that the Azeris managed to achieve their stated "victory conditions" relatively easily:

 

Armenian separatists in Karabakh surrender and agree to ceasefire with Azerbaijan | Reuters

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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Azerbaijan said on Wednesday it had halted military action in its breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenian separatist forces there surrendered and agreed to a ceasefire whose terms signalled the area would return to Baku's control.

 

 

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Azerbaijan said on Wednesday it had halted military action in its breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenian separatist forces there surrendered and agreed to a ceasefire whose terms signalled the area would return to Baku's control.

 

Under the agreement, confirmed by both sides and effective from 1 p.m. (0900 GMT) on Wednesday, separatist forces will disband and disarm and talks on the future of the region and the ethnic Armenians who live there will start on Thursday.

 

Karabakh, a mountainous area in the volatile wider South Caucasus region, is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory, but part of it has been run by separatist Armenian authorities who say the area is their ancestral homeland.

 

Fearful of what the future might hold, crowds of ethnic Armenians made their way to the airport in Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh which is known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan. Others took shelter with Russian peacekeepers.

 

Azerbaijan, which sent troops backed by artillery strikes into Karabakh on Tuesday in an attempt to bring the breakaway region to heel, has said it planned to integrate the area's 120,000 ethnic Armenians and that their rights would be protected under the constitution.

 

[TUFKAK]

Azerbaijan better than Russia confirmed 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians at the Stepanakert airport:

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

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Kremlin says events in Nagorno-Karabakh ‘Azerbaijan’s internal affair’

 

The Kremlin has said that events in Nagorno-Karabakh were an “internal” issue for Azerbaijan.

 

“Azerbaijan is acting on its own territory which Armenia has recognised,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian news agencies.

 

“This is Azerbaijan’s internal affair.”

 

 

[Chadatog]

I showed this to my co worker from Azerbaijan, and she said "not to sound racist, but I don't like Armenians"

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

On 9/20/2023 at 6:44 PM, Chadatog said:

I showed this to my co worker from Azerbaijan, and she said "not to sound racist, but I don't like Armenians"

 

For an Azeri, that's a relatively "mild" statement.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

In any event, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Nagorno-Karabakh will be "ethnically cleansed" of its Armenian population.

 

Ethnic Armenians flee Karabakh after breakaway region's defeat | Reuters

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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Thousands of ethnic Armenians fled the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, queuing up for fuel and jamming the mountain road to Armenia after their fighters were defeated by Azerbaijan in a lightning military operation.

 

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Thousands of ethnic Armenians fled the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, queuing up for fuel and jamming the mountain road to Armenia after their fighters were defeated by Azerbaijan in a lightning military operation.

 

The leadership of the 120,000 Armenians who call Karabakh home told Reuters on Sunday that they did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and that they would leave for Armenia because they feared persecution and ethnic cleansing.

 

In the Karabakh capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan, crowds of people were loading belongings into buses and trucks as they left for Armenia.

Refugees who reached Armenia told Reuters they believed the history of their breakaway state was finished.

 

"No one is going back - that's it," Anna Agopyan, who reached Goris, a border town in Armenia, told Reuters. "The topic of Karabakh is over now for good, I think."

 

 

‘I will never go back’: death stalks the exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh | Nagorno-Karabakh | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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More than 6,000 ethnic Armenian refugees have left region following Azerbaijan victory

 

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The day the shelling began, Genadi Hyusunts had just taken his four-day-old son home from the hospital.

 

Within hours, he had to hustle his wife, the newborn child and his six other children to the shelter in his native Martakert, which sits in Nagorno-Karabakh on the frontline of a three-decade conflict with Azerbaijan.

 

There, his breastfeeding wife and family faced days of hunger and sleeplessness in an overcrowded basement, as he headed for the frontline as part of a desperate defence of what Armenians see as their ancestral homeland.

 

“We didn’t have a place to sleep, we didn’t see a bed and in the very last days we didn’t have anything to eat,” said his sister, Gayane Shagants. “In the last days we were starving.”

 

Hyusunts, one of more than 6,000 refugees to have left Nagorno-Karabakh since Sunday, said that his son was healthy despite the ordeal. But his face darkens when asked about the short stint that he served before the Nagorno-Karabakh defence forces laid down their arms, effectively ending more than 30 years of self-rule by ethnic Armenians.

 

“I can not talk about that,” he said darkly.

 

[CayceG]

It's really neat that the world looked at this genocide and just decided "meh, we don't care."

 

 

 

Also, I don't know when this change happened, but Google lists the name of Stepanakert under its Azeri name "Khankendi."

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

7 minutes ago, CayceG said:

It's really neat that the world looked at this genocide and just decided "meh, we don't care."

 

Technically, it's not a genocide.  Yet.

 

But it's unquestionably "ethnic cleansing" even if the Azeris aren't actively deporting the Armenians.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Nagorno-Karabakh: more than a third of the region’s population flees into Armenia | Nagorno-Karabakh | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Death toll from fuel depot explosion on Monday rises to 68 as ethnic Armenians raise concerns about reprisals from Azerbaijan

 

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Over a third of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population have fled into Armenia since Azerbaijan launched an attack on the breakaway region last week, according to Armenia’s government.

 

Some 42,500 people – about 35% of the region’s population – scrambled to flee as soon as Azerbaijan lifted a 10-month blockade on the region’s only road to Armenia. That blockade had caused severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel. While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of Armenians, many residents feared reprisals.

 

The updated figures came as the death toll from an explosion at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh rose to 68, with a further 105 people missing and nearly 300 injured, the office of Karabakh’s ombudsman said.

 

The explosion took place as people lined up to fill their cars at a gas station outside Stepanakert, the region’s capital, late Monday. The cause of the blast remains unclear, but Nagorno-Karabakh presidential aide David Babayan said initial information suggested that it resulted from negligence, adding that sabotage was unlikely.

 

Armenian authorities also said that they brought 125 bodies over to Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh for identification. The country’s Health Ministry clarified that all of those were killed in the fighting last week.

 

Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said on X, formerly Twitter, that hospitals in Azerbaijan were ready to treat victims, but did not say if any had been taken there.

 

 

[Greatoneshere]

So, basic question here as I'm trying to follow these latest events, but does this mean Nagorno-Karabakh is completely in Azerbaijani control again and the Republic of Artsakh is no more (obviously not internationally recognized, but still)? That seems like a big deal if so. I always assumed Artsakh was "unofficially" supported by Armenia, either to allow Nagorno-Karabakh to become independent or become part of Armenia given N-K's majority Armenian population despite sitting land-locked in the middle of Azerbaijani territory. So isn't this huge news that Azerbaijan just decided to crush the Armenian revolutionary group and Armenia does nothing and Armenians from N-K just flee to Armenia instead? I sadly never saw a happy outcome for N-K, I always assumed the end result would be all Armenians leave back to nearby Armenia and more Azerbaijani's move in which is what sounds like is happening now, correct?

 

Also, doesn't Azerbaijan need Armenia's cooperation to support Azerbaijan's exclave the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on the other side of Armenia? Won't this affect things with that, in terms of moving goods across, etc.?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

5 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

So, basic question here as I'm trying to follow these latest events, but does this mean Nagorno-Karabakh is completely in Azerbaijani control again and the Republic of Artsakh is no more (obviously not internationally recognized, but still)? That seems like a big deal if so. I always assumed Artsakh was "unofficially" supported by Armenia, either to allow Nagorno-Karabakh to become independent or become part of Armenia given N-K's majority Armenian population despite sitting land-locked in the middle of Azerbaijani territory. So isn't this huge news that Azerbaijan just decided to crush the Armenian revolutionary group and Armenia does nothing and Armenians from N-K just flee to Armenia instead? I sadly never saw a happy outcome for N-K, I always assumed the end result would be all Armenians leave back to nearby Armenia and more Azerbaijani's move in which is what sounds like is happening now, correct?

 

Also, doesn't Azerbaijan need Armenia's cooperation to support Azerbaijan's exclave the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on the other side of Armenia? Won't this affect things with that?

 

You're correct - Azerbaijan has effectively gained control of N-K and the "Republic of Artsakh" no longer exists (not that it actually ever really did).

 

As for the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, considering that it's bordered by Baku's staunch Turkish ally, I seriously doubt that Armenia is in any position to do anything untowards it at all.

[Greatoneshere]

8 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

You're correct - Azerbaijan has effectively gained control of N-K and the "Republic of Artsakh" no longer exists (not that it actually ever really did).

 

As for the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, considering that it's bordered by Baku's staunch Turkish ally, I seriously doubt that Armenia is in any position to do anything untowards it at all.

 

That's a good point about Turkey being on the other side of the NAR, that makes sense. Why did Azerbaijan make this move now? N-K has been effectively self-governed by the local Armenians for 3 decades now, why not do this earlier? Is it because Russia is distracted with Ukraine? I assume Azerbaijan has wanted proper control of N-K since they "lost" it in 1994, but I haven't been following recent Azerbaijani moves on N-K, was this a surprise or expected? I feel like an all-out military offensive is a big deal yet this seems like it's being treated as no big deal.

 

Granted, this may be ultimately for the best for N-K and for the Armenians there to unfortunately be basically forced out of their ancestral home rather than the other likelihoods like get killed or put into camps. All of it sucks though because clearly this was Azerbaijan's plan to force the local Armenians into a choice of either "trust living under us" or "peacefully leave to Armenia" after ending the insurgency there.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

That's a good point about Turkey being on the other side of the NAR, that makes sense. Why did Azerbaijan make this move now? N-K has been effectively self-governed by the local Armenians for 3 decades now, why not do this earlier? Is it because Russia is distracted with Ukraine? I assume Azerbaijan has wanted proper control of N-K since they "lost" it in 1994, but I haven't been following recent Azerbaijani moves on N-K, was this a surprise or expected? I feel like an all-out military offensive is a big deal yet this seems like it's being treated as no big deal.

 

Granted, this may be ultimately for the best for N-K and for the Armenians there to unfortunately be basically forced out of their ancestral home rather than the other likelihoods like get killed or put into camps. All of it sucks though because clearly this was Azerbaijan's plan to force the local Armenians into a choice of either "trust living under us" or "peacefully leave to Armenia" after ending the insurgency there.

 

After Azerbaijan's overwhelming victory in the brief 2020 war, it really was just a matter of time before the inevitable outcome became a reality.

 

Also, Russia's soured relationship with Armenia definitely acted as a "green light" for Baku just to put an end to it once and for all.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Well over 50% of the Armenian population of N-K has now fled to Armenia itself and the enclave will dissolve on 01 January 2024:

 

More than 70,000 refugees have fled Karabakh for Armenia, says Yerevan

WWW.ALJAZEERA.COM

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After Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive, ethnic Armenian officials have agreed to dissolve unrecognised state apparatus.

 

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About 70,500 refugees have fled Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia in a matter of days after Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive, according to Yerevan. That’s about 85 percent of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who had lived in the troubled enclave until last week.

 

Capitulating to Azerbaijan, the unrecognised president of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Samvel Shahramanyan, has signed a decree to dissolve all state institutions from January 1, 2024.

 

Azerbaijan has launched several criminal cases against Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of government of the breakaway region, the Azerbaijani security service says.

 

Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Armenians fleeing have nothing to fear, essentially rejecting Armenia’s claims of “ethnic cleansing”.

 

[TUFKAK]

On 9/25/2023 at 1:25 PM, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

For an Azeri, that's a relatively "mild" statement.

My Russian friend is actually Azeri, this was basically her response when I spoke to her the other day.

[Jason]

On 9/20/2023 at 3:44 PM, Chadatog said:

I showed this to my co worker from Azerbaijan, and she said "not to sound racist, but I don't like Armenians"

 

lol I thought this said "Americans" the first time I saw this and was very confused

[Chadatog]

37 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

My Russian friend is actually Azeri, this was basically her response when I spoke to her the other day.

Of course she followed the statement saying rather racist things about Armenians, like how they steal other people's culture.

[TUFKAK]

12 minutes ago, Chadatog said:

Of course she followed the statement saying rather racist things about Armenians, like how they steal other people's culture.

For her she’s a survivor of the civil war and was granted refugee status in Russia, I can understand why she’s a bit impacted by this.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Almost all ethnic Armenians have left Nagorno-Karabakh | Nagorno-Karabakh | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Armenian government says 100,000 people have fled since Azerbaijan took control of breakaway region

 

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Almost all ethnic Armenians have left Nagorno-Karabakh since Azerbaijan attacked and ordered the breakaway region’s militants to disarm, the Armenian government said on Saturday.

 

Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the press secretary to Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said 100,417 people had arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a population of about 120,000 before Azerbaijan reclaimed the region in a offensive last week.

 

A total of 21,043 vehicles had crossed the Hakari bridge, which links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, since last week, Baghdasaryan said. Some lined up for days because the winding mountain road that is the only route to Armenia became jammed.

 

The departure of more than 80% of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population raises questions about Azerbaijan’s plans for the enclave that was internationally recognised as part of its territory. The region’s separatist ethnic Armenian government said on Thursday that it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Deserted Nagorno-Karabakh reveals aftermath of lightning-fast Armenian defeat

WWW.BBC.COM

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Half-eaten food at abandoned positions reveals how fast Karabakh Armenians lost control to Azerbaijan.

 

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At an Armenian outpost high in the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh, a half-full cooking pot sat next to a half-eaten plate of food. There was a half-smoked cigarette and half a bread roll.

 

At another, smaller outpost farther along the former frontline, an Armenian log book sat abandoned in the grass. Its final entry was a perfunctory note that read, "Everything is under control."

 

The remnants at these outposts on Tuesday testified to the speed with which the Armenians had lost control two weeks earlier, during a lightning-fast military operation by Azerbaijan.

 

The Azerbaijani forces seized the breakaway region in less than 24 hours, three decades after a bloody conflict that had left it in the hands of the Armenians.

 

Some 200 Azerbaijani soldiers lost their lives in the battle and about 500 were wounded, according to officials. But virtually nothing is known about how, or where, so many Azerbaijani soldiers died in such a short span of time, and on a tightly-controlled media tour of the region on Tuesday Azerbaijani military representatives did not elaborate.

 

A soldier who was put up as a spokesman, but declined to give his name or rank, said the Azerbaijanis had retaken this stretch of frontline with a mixture of precision artillery strikes and infantry, battling against an irregular Armenian force in possession of an armoured vehicle and two tanks, who used snipers to fire from their elevated position at the Azerbaijanis.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Blinken warned lawmakers Azerbaijan may invade Armenia in coming weeks - POLITICO

WWW.POLITICO.COM

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He also said State isn't planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku.

 

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned a small group of lawmakers last week that his department is tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan could soon invade Armenia, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

 

The call indicates the depth of concern in the administration about Azerbaijan’s operations against a breakaway region in the west of the country and the possibility of the conflict spreading.

 

Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a “corridor” along its southern border, linking mainland Azerbaijan to an exclave that borders Turkey and Iran. Aliyev has threatened to solve the issue “by force.”

 

 

After all, Baku needs to get its money's worth for all those shiny new weapons it just took delivery of from Israel.

 

Israeli arms quietly helped Azerbaijan retake Nagorno-Karabakh, to the dismay of region's Armenians - ABC News

ABCNEWS.GO.COM

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Israel has quietly helped fuel Azerbaijan’s campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, supplying powerful weapons to the country ahead of its lightening offensive last month that brought the Armenian separatist...

 

[Greatoneshere]

More people need to be following this situation.