Late on November 19, Azerbaijani troops started entering the district of Agdam in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Agdam is one of the districts surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that Azerbaijan lost to Armenian forces after the collapse of the USSR, as a result of the First Karabkah War. On November 20, the district is set to be fully transfered to Azerbaijan under the peace deal reached by Baku and Yerevan to put an end to the Second Karabkah War earlier in November. An overwhelming majority of Armenians living in Agdam have already left the area. Over the past days, authorities of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (also known as the Republic of Artsakh) were assisting in the evacuation. Many of the leaving Armenians were burning their homes in order to not allow the Azerbaijanis to seize them and use them in the future.
The next district, which is set to be transferred to Azerbaijani control, is Kalbajar. Originally, it had to be handed to Baku forces on November 15, but this development was rescheduled for November 25. The Armenians currently fleeing Kalbajar are burning their homes and properties that they cannot evacuate. If the control over Agdam and Kalbajar is transferred to Azerbaijan without major incidents, Lachin will become the next district that will face this fate. Nonetheless, the Lachin corridor linking Armenia with Stepanakert and other Karabakh territories that will remain in the hands of the Armenians will be secured by the Russian peacekeeping force. Currently, the Russian military has 23 checkpoints in the conflict zone. The Lachin-Stepanakert road was reopened and over 1235 displaced civilians have returned to Stepanakert.
Contrary to the situation within districts that would be transferred to the Azerbaijani forces, Armenians do not flee the areas that will remain in the zone of responsibility of the Russians. Instead, many people that fled the conflict have opted to return their homes. Nonetheless, the local humanitarian crisis can hardly be avoided. According to the 2015 census, the population of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was about 151,000. The conflict reportedly displaced about a half of them, somewhere between 75,000-80,000. Even more people are now fleeing districts that are set to be transferred to Azerbaijan under the fear of violence, ethnic cleansing and other kinds of threats from the Azerbaijani forces and authorities. A part of the displaced people is now returning to Stepanakert and other nearby areas under Russian protection. However, even in the best case, the Armenian state will still have to deal with tens of thousands of displaced people in its territory. Yerevan already announced some financial help and economic support to these people, but the situation in Karabkah itself also requires attention. So far, the only side conducting humanitarian actions there has been Russia that created a special humanitarian center for this purpose.
The coming weeks will demonstrate the ability of the sides to compel each other to the reached ceasefire accords and, in the event of their implementation, a sufficient level of peace and security will finally be achieved in the region.
For disclosure, I am neither Armenian nor Azeri, nor Russian for that matter.
I am thinking… the Azeri have relatively recently acquired the drones from Turkey and Israel ( April- June) 2020 and then have practiced all summer long drone warfare with Turkish and likely Israeli specialists. I find it hard to believe that Russian intelligence services which maintain a robust presence in the ex Soviet Union space did not learn about this ominous developments. If they did indeed failed to acknowledge and learn the scope this major development at their back door, than that would casts some serious doubt about the efficiency of the services. After all this would be the second major miss, after the Maidan coup in Ukraine in Feb-March 2014.
If however, they had the intelligence about the Azeri’s intentions to use drone warfare in fresh attempt to capture Nagorno Karabach, then Russian failure to notify the Armenian side amounts to tacit support for the Azeris. With the Armenians being busy to go against Russians interest in the region since 2018 colored revolution and Pashinyan size of power, who can blame them? Critically important there were hundreds of thousands of gullible, brainwashed Armenians, liberal stooges of the decadent West who supported CIA coup lead by Pashinyan;
I tend to believe the second scenario is more credible, however not sure 100%
A third possibility is that they told the Armenian authorities and these people preferred to ignore the information. I suspect this is the most likely possibility. The Armenian leadership and much of their opposition were totally deluded and believed that either France of the USA would prevent any attack.
Ultimately, people believe what they want to believe – regardless of the evidence.
Just look around you at all the sheep wearing masks that are only good for stopping mosquitoes.
That is certainly a possibility; however, there is a relatively recent- and well documented in the media- analogy in west, regarding sharing military ( or otherwise) critically important information with the allies. To this extent I have read and heard form several sources that CIA, MI5 and other counterintelligence services from western powers have stopped sharing their info with both Austrian and Hungarian counterpart ( which are nominally allies) because both Sebastian Kurz and certainly Victor Orban are too close Putin/Russia and they fear leakage of any such shared information with these two countries intelligence agencies.(especially of military and political nature).
In this context, I can imagine the Russians withholding Azeri battle plans from Pashinyan and his fellow gang members on the payroll of CIA.
I reiterate… Pashinyan came to power with the unfortunate but genuine popular support of hundred of thousands of Armenians who bought into “getting rid of the corrupt regime scheme”,while falling like lemmings into the CIA trap. So why will the Russian even share such info with this bunch? I wouldn’t .With friends like Armenia, who needs enemies?!
Russia did inform the Armenian government from the 2018 pro-West coup that didn’t listen – their ears were only tuned to the usual western suspects.
You are correct – observers in NK did report Azeri preparations to Armenia that didn’t care. It was too busy sacking military and intel officers for western backed and orientated stooges.
Pasinjan purged all Army officers trained and educated in Russia and CEASED ALL MILITARY CONTACTS AND COOPERATION WITH RUSSIA.
So, I do not see how Russians could do anything…
Drones were used by Azeri in 4days war in April 2016. It was not a secret weapon. Only in 2020 have got large number drones and better models than 4 years ago but trend to go to develop drone warfare was clear several years It was a mistake of Serg Sarkisjan (2016-2018( and probably treason commited by Pasinjan (2018-2020).
NATO is not amused:
“Russia’s growth of influence is widely recognized. The ceasefire agreement means “a geopolitical victory” for Moscow, says Michael Carpenter, managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.[5]
…
According to the Carnegie Moscow Center Russia “played a spectacular diplomatic move.”[7] President Vladimir Putin was the “unexpected winner of this war,” writes the opinion-making Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.[8] According to the German government-financed Deutsche Welle “the West” has “again yielded the floor to Putin” – “like already in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria.”[9]”
https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/news/detail/8440/
Crying, crying …
But they will cry more and more…because Russia has colossal plans and projects next 10 to 15 years.
National projects, infrastructure, military modernization, ship building, civil aviation industry, IT sector, pharmacy, agriculture, space projects…
..Russia will get stronger in international arena and Russia have bright future if everything is OK and I hope it will be…
Russia have to do more on propaganda and soft power. To improve life standard of its people.
Russia with its multi-world strategy is crucially important.
This world can be trully democratic only if it is multi-world.
And small countries and nations can only survive in such world.
Otherwise – just tiranny, terror and global dictatorship.
Russian aid convoys arrive to Stepen…..Lavrov and Shoigu and team visit Armenia to get non revisable agreements confirmed and signed… visits to Azer. also….Turkey sends troops to ceasefire monitoring place….Azer takes back home military equipment it has captured…..Armenia is going to reorganise modernise its army….still some protests in Armenia….some Syrian militants photographed in Artzak……
There is a very simple explanation to Russia’s behaviour. Russia rewards good neighbours and punishes bad neighbours. Azerbaijan has been a very good neighbour, in fact a model neighbour. It has a stable Russian educated leadership which wants to work with Moscow in a constructive way. If all Russia’s neighbours were like the Aliyevs Putin’s job would be much easier. Armenia on the other hand is a loose cannon and Pashinyan was a provocative colour revolution populist who destroyed Moscow’s balancing act in the southern caucasus. Why not let the Azeris win and regain their lost territory? A new balance of power was inevitable which Moscow is now managing. This was a very good war, fought cleanly with an honourable settlement brought about by Moscow. The chastened Armenians are really in Moscow’s pocket now and have been warned to be on their best behaviour. The grateful Azeris are thankful to Putin as Aliyev’s statement today shows. The West has been shown to be impotent and is in complete disgrace in Baku and Yerevan (for different reasons). Putin has played a blinder in diplomacy. The Armenians like to say Moscow lost power but they are just trying to work up anti-Turkish sentiment. Russia is in control and it achieved everything without armed force. The West is seething. What is not to like?