The South Caucasus News - SouthCaucasusNews.com

By Lilit Shahverdyan 

(Eurasianet) — Over the past few days, footage has circulated across Azerbaijani social media appearing to show increased movement of Azerbaijani troops around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the border with Armenia. 

Military shipments from Israel to Azerbaijan appear to have increased simultaneously, raising fears among Armenians of another impending attack from Azerbaijan. 

At a government session on September 7, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan pointed to these developments and said that “the military and political situation in our region has been significantly aggravated over the past week.”

“The rhetoric of anti-Armenian hatred has intensified in the Azerbaijani press and propaganda platforms. The policy of encroachment on the sovereign territory of Armenia continues,” he added.

The military buildup has triggered particular alarm in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The region has effectively been under Azerbaijani blockade since December, and the blockade has been particularly intense since mid-June. 

Armenian and Karabakhi officials have long spoken about Azerbaijani designs to ethnically cleanse the region using force if necessary. 

“It is obvious that Azerbaijan is preparing military operations, and simultaneously trying to exert psychological pressure on the governments and peoples of the Republics of Artsakh and Armenia, as well as to gauge the reaction of the Armenian parties and regional and global actors,” wrote Artak Beglaryan, a former senior Karabakh official. (Artsakh is an alternative Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh.)

In case of an offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, the local forces are unlikely to be able to mount much of a resistance given Azerbaijan’s numerical and power dominance over the roughly 120,000 Karabakhis.

There have been numerous clashes since Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, both in and around Nagorno-Karabakh and on the border between Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia. Several of the latter have resulted in Azerbaijani troops taking up positions inside Armenia. 

Several previous escalations were preceded by Azerbaijani media reports about “revenge operations” or claims of Armenian forces preparing to stage acts of “provocation.”

This time, Azerbaijani media is mirroring Armenian allegations. State channel AzTV suggested that Armenian reports of Azerbaijani military buildup and the Armenian defense minister’s cancellation of a planned trip abroad are signs that Yerevan is laying the groundwork for its own escalation.

And Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry characterized Pashinyan’s warnings as “an integral part of Armenia’s false political manipulation.” 

The EU’s civilian monitoring mission deployed on the Armenian side of the border has reported to Brussels its concerns over “rising tensions and shootings in the border regions of Armenia and Azerbaijan” and stepped up its patrols. It has not sought to blame either side for the current spike in tension, though.

The current reports of Azerbaijani military buildup come on the heels of an Azerbaijani attack on September 1 near the Armenian border town of Sotk that left three Armenian soldiers dead. 

Five days after that, Armenia announced it would hold the Eagle Partner military exercisesjointly with the United States on September 11-20. The Defense Ministry said the purpose of the drills was to prepare Armenian forces for international peacekeeping missions.

The US has become a key player in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace processes since the 2020 war, overseeing an Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process together with the EU. 

A separate negotiating track is managed by Russia, which has maintained a 2,000-strong peacekeeping presence in Nagorno-Karabakh since the end of the war. 

Russia is also Armenia’s traditional military and economic strategic partner, but Armenian leaders are more and more openly questioning the efficacy of the alliance given Moscow’s refusal to help it against Azerbaijani incursions and the peacekeepers’ alleged failure to protect the Armenians of Karabakh. 

While prospects for peace seem bleaker than ever, the Armenian prime minister reiterated in his September 7 remarks that he was ready to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan and end the decades of hostility between the neighboring countries. 

The Israel factor

Israel is one of Azerbaijan’s strategic allies and key weapons suppliers.

In March 2023 Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published a report detailing the extent of the Israel-Azerbaijan military partnership. It found that 92 military cargo jet flights took place between Ovda, a military air base in southern Israel, and airports in Azerbaijan between 2016 and the time of publication. 

The Armenian investigative outlet Hetq has been monitoring flights between Ovda and Azerbaijan since then. It recently found that one particular Azerbaijani Silk Road Airlines plane landed at Ovda and returned to Azerbaijan four times between August 15 and September 2. On two of these return flights, it landed in Ganja, a city close to Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Haaretz’s article noted that over the years intensified Ovda-Azerbaijan flights coincided with periods of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, including the April 2016 escalation, the 2020 war, and several post-war escalations.

Elsewhere, a post on the site formerly known as Twitter by Turkish nationalist politician Sinan Ogan is being seen by Armenians as another ominous signal from a strategic partner of Baku’s. 

It features an image of Ogan with the words “Khankendi is the Turkish world’s pride” alongside an upside-down A, which is a symbol painted on Azerbaijani military vehicles. (Khankandi is the Azerbaijani name for Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto capital Stepanakert.)

Ogan, who is of Azerbaijani origin, placed third in the Turkish presidential election in May 23 and threw his support behind the incumbent and ultimate victor Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the second round. 

Heydar Isayev contributed reporting. 

Lilit Shahverdyan is a journalist based in Stepanakert. 

Any longtime observer of Russian politics would know that the state of play in the Russian-American tango is best assessed from subplots, often obscure and unnoticed, away from its amphitheatre where gladiators cross swords. Therefore, two alleys on Ukraine crisis need to be explored. 

One is the meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar in Jakarta on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit and the other the unannounced arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kiev.  Both events happened on Wednesday. The cypher traffic between Jakarta, Kiev, Moscow and Washington would have been pretty heavy during the past 48 hours.

The Russian readout on Lavrov’s meeting with Jaishankar said that the two ministers “exchanged views on the most pressing issues of bilateral relations and international issues… A mutual desire to increase coordination in multilateral formats, primarily at the UN, as well as within the SCO, BRICS and the G20, was emphasised.” 

Evidently, what warranted the meeting was the feverish Indian attempt to work out a formulation on Ukraine for the G20 Declaration that would enable Modi government to claim a diplomatic triumph. 

Last week, Lavrov warned that “There will be no general [G20] declaration on behalf of all members if our position is not reflected.” But Jaishankar would know that an axiom of Russian diplomacy is, “Never say never”.

It seems unlikely that Moscow will stand in the way of Modi holding a trophy when the G20 concludes on Sunday. For President Biden too, a successful Modi becomes a more effective partner in the Indo-Pacific. 

In fact, the White House announcement highlighted that “While in New Delhi, President Biden will also commend Prime Minister Modi’s leadership of the G20 and reaffirm the US commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation, including by hosting it in 2026.” 

Some compromise formula on Ukraine may still be negotiated. If so, its parameters will be an indicator of the extent to which Moscow and Washington are inclined to bridge their respective interests and expectations. 

Meanwhile, on September 6, Blinken embarked on quite an untypical visit to Kiev. There was no fire in his belly. For once, he didn’t threaten Russia or ridicule Putin from Ukrainian soil. Nor did Blinken show much enthusiasm for Kiev’s counteroffensive. 

Rather, his focus was on the war’s horrific trail causing human suffering, Ukraine’s post-conflict recovery as a democracy and its economy’s reconstruction. Blinken said repeatedly that he was undertaking the visit on Biden’s instruction. In the presence of  President Zelensky, Blinken stated: 

“We are determined in the United States to continue to walk side by side with you. And President Biden asked me to come, to reaffirm strongly our support, to ensure that we are maximising the efforts that we’re making and other countries are making for the immediate challenge of the counteroffensive as well as the longer-term efforts to help Ukraine build a force for the future that can deter and defend against any future aggression, but also to work with you and support you as you engage in the critical work of strengthening your democracy, rebuilding your economy.”

Stirring words, but there was no boastful talk of liberating Crimea, carrying the fight into the Russian camp or forcing Russia to vacate the annexed territories and negotiating with Russia only from a position of strength. At Blinken’s joint press availability with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, the latter claimed that they had a “substantive” discussion on providing long-range rockets, ATACMS to Kiev. But Blinken sidestepped the topic.

The most unusual thing about Blinken’s visit was that it spilled over to a second day. This must be the first time Blinken spent a night in Ukraine. Blinken had a rather tight schedule on the first day meeting Kuleba, Zelensky and Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, but the itinerary for the second day [September 7], was left open. Obviously, he came to Kiev for some serious discussions.

Conceivably, Biden could be interested in starting peace talks between Moscow and Kiev now that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed to meet its politico-military objectives, and there are worrisome signs of support waning in America and Europe for the proxy war, while a Russian offensive could deal a knockout punch on Ukraine’s military. Both Russian and western estimates are that close to 65-70,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in these past 3 months alone since Kiev’s  “counteroffensive” began. 

Meanwhile, in an interesting coincidence, on September 6, Ukraine’s parliament Verkhovna Rada approved the appointment of Rustem Umerov as the new Defence Minister replacing Alexei Reznikov. A Crimean Tatar born in Uzbekistan (USSR), Umerov has no previous military background. But he is trusted by Zelensky and is acceptable to the Americans. 

What distinguishes Umerov is that he was a key negotiator at the peace talks with Russia in Istanbul last year in March, which actually resulted in an agreed document (from which Zelensky subsequently retracted under Anglo-American pressure.) Again, he was instrumental in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative (so-called grain deal between Ukraine and Russia) which became operational in July last year at Istanbul. These are straws in the wind that must be duly noted. 

On September 7, one day after Umerov’s appointment, the Turkish Defence Ministry announced in Ankara: “We are closely monitoring the events unfolding between Russia and Ukraine, which seriously threaten the security of our region and the entire world. We confirm our readiness to play an active and assisting role in ensuring a ceasefire and a stable peace, as well as provide comprehensive support in alleviating the humanitarian crisis.” Again, it must be carefully noted that the Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler had just returned from Russia as a member of the delegation accompanying President Recep Erdogan to Sochi on Monday. 

In yet another coincidence, on September 7, Zaporozhye Region Acting Governor Yevgeny Balitsky (a Kremlin appointee) told TASS out of the blue that Russia and Ukraine need a neutral platform where the two countries can negotiate pragmatic solutions to mutual issues, including prisoner swaps, which would work even as the special military operation continues. Balitsky was responding to a pointed question from TASS about the current possibility of Russia-Ukraine talks. He went on to state that: 

“There should be a negotiating platform somewhere — at the level of foreign ministries, at the level of other mediating countries. People are needed who are, unfortunately, disengaged from the situation. They are able to tackle the issue in an objective and pragmatic way, however, there should be a table somewhere where authorised representatives would interact. This will allow [POW] swap issues to be resolved, or, for example, the issue of a moratorium on shelling nuclear power plants. This will benefit everyone, even in war time, no matter how cynical this sounds.

“So, in any case there should be some kind of platform. It could launch the beginning of more extensive talks. And something could grow from this as a result. And, perhaps, we would be able to resolve the task set forth by the president peacefully.” 

Make no mistake, Balitsky is a seasoned politician from Melitopol hailing from a military family who served in the Soviet army and had two terms in the Ukrainian parliament since he entered politics in 2004. No doubt, he spoke on instructions from the Kremlin. 

By the way, Putin had met Balitsky at the Kremlin two weeks ago. Balitsky’s remarks were carefully timed, and Blinken and his Ukrainian hosts wouldn’t have missed the message he transmitted — that Moscow is open to negotiations. 

Even as cracking sounds are audible on the frozen lake of Russian-American relations, what lends enchantment to the view is that both Biden and Lavrov are arriving in Delhi later today for the G20 summit through Sunday. 

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