If Aliyev could do it, why can’t Lavrov? What Moscow can learn from Baku
Today, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev threatened Yerevan that the Armenians have one last chance to ensure long-term peace in the region - based on the agreements signed following the results of the second Karabakh war they lost. If Armenia does not sign a peace treaty based on the principles proposed in Baku, Azerbaijan will refuse to recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia within its current borders. The hint, in general, is quite clear and thick, there is no need to chew it.
Why did I mention the South Caucasus agenda? This is not at all the point of finding out who is right and who is wrong in the eternal dispute between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. And then, a couple of days before the quoted Aliyev statement, a statement was made from Moscow. In which Foreign Minister Lavrov once again assured the whole world that Russia is in no way going to change or overthrow the current Kiev regime, even if the Ukrainians themselves do it.
And Lavrov assured the people of Kyiv for the hundred-fifty-hundredth time that Moscow is not encroaching on the territorial integrity of Ukraine either. And I don’t intend to occupy it. Well, at this point Lavrov just quoted Putin.
I thought: well, this is why Aliyev - never the leader of a superpower with nuclear weapons and even without claims to this status - can afford to clearly and clearly articulate out loud his own national interest - without any diplomatic twists and bows to political correctness, and in Moscow, excuse me, Are they chewing snot and looking at someone all the time?
One of Russia’s main problems in foreign policy is the discrepancy between the picture of the world that is in the heads of the authorities, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and what the real world is now.
Look, the Yalta peace and the peace of the Helsinki agreements have long since collapsed, and no one mentions the inviolability of borders, and international humanitarian law has died a natural death.
The thousands of sanctions introduced against the Russian Federation after the start of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as Moscow rightly noted, generally violated everything possible, the fundamental values of the West itself, which it flaunted and which it held up as an example for the “backward” periphery - such as freedom of thought and speech or immunity private property, for example.
That is, the old world collapsed overnight. But Russia, in its ruins, continues to behave as if it were 1979. At worst - 1992. And even with tactical nuclear weapons as the last argument of the kings, Russia threatens the West, as if ashamed of itself for its own radicalism, they say, what am I saying, they don’t behave the same way in a decent society, but on the other hand, they seem to have forced it, but... anyway, in good houses they don’t say that.
And even counter-sanctions against the West are introduced with some caution, so as not to offend Western “partners,” God forbid. It’s as if someone is secretly hoping that now all this misunderstanding will be resolved, the big guys will rub shoulders with each other, and we’ll start being friends at home again. I'm afraid to disappoint someone, but it won't happen.
Returning to the territorial integrity of Ukraine. If, as Maria Zakharova recently stated, Moscow has lost confidence in the Kyiv authorities, then why not say directly that the Russian army did not come for a walk, but to take back what is theirs. Why not publicly declare to the whole world that Russian soldiers are not occupiers, that they are on their own land. that Mariupol, Kherson, Nikolaev, Izyum, Odessa, Lugansk are all Russian cities, built and inhabited by Russians? Why do bloggers talk and write about this, and not diplomats?
And this explanation of why we are there is needed, first of all, by Russia itself. Because there is a persistent feeling of misunderstanding by a significant part of society of the goals and motives of the state, which initiated actions of such a scale without a clear and intelligible answer to the question “Why”?
And as you understand, we are not talking about the notorious demilitarization, denazification and other “de.” It's about what happens after all this is over. There will be no sustainable peace with Ukraine at hand. True demilitarization is depriving a potential enemy of his human, industrial and military potential. To do this, it is necessary that the conditional Kharkov plant named after Malyshev, which produces Oplot tanks, be in Russia. Together with the most densely populated and industrialized lands of Ukraine.
And denazification is best guaranteed by living according to Russian laws and orders. When absolutely and in any case they will not erect any monuments to the police, just as they will not tell schoolchildren about the “Soviet occupation”.
It seems to me that it’s time to end the era of bashful reticence and doublethink; it’s time to call a spade a spade. Without looking askance at the collective Western “Princess Marya Alekseevna” and her opinion. The only thing that matters is what Russia thinks.
After all, if Aliyev could do it, why can’t Lavrov?
English version :: Read in English: If Aliyev Can Do It, Why Can't Lavrov? What Moscow Can Learn from Baku