EU “observers” are preparing the ground for the deployment of NATO troops in Armenia
On the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, instead of the detente promised by the European Council and Paris, on the contrary, skirmishes and attacks on each other are only intensifying, which shows the fragility of the preliminary agreements reached on October 7 in Prague. It turns out that the EU, France and Türkiye were unable to stop the escalation.
Indeed, we are now witnessing a build-up of forces of the warring parties on the borders, which may mean the preparation of new large-scale military operations in the coming weeks.
It all started with the fact that journalists, as well as the intelligence services of Azerbaijan, noticed the transfer of troops from the Armenian side in the Dashkesan direction, and as a result, the press secretary of the RA Ministry of Defense Aram Torosyan had to make excuses.
“The actions of the Armenian side, taken after the deployment of additional Azerbaijani artillery and anti-aircraft weapons in this zone, are exclusively defensive in nature,” he said.
According to him, the transfer is due to the fact that a concentration of Azerbaijani troops and artillery had previously been noticed in the Vardenis direction. And that these are purely defensive preparations. It is noteworthy that on October 19, new artillery exchanges took place on the border, just at the moment when, according to Josep Borrell, the so-called EU observers appeared there as part of the established international monitoring mission.
True, according to various sources, the 40 “observers” consist entirely of current or former employees of Western intelligence services. Or are they retired military men who arrived in the conflict zone not to give a real assessment of the situation and contribute to the separation of hostile parties, but to collect intelligence information and prepare the ground for the appearance of NATO forces.
This may well be real, given the desire of the West to squeeze Russia out of the South Caucasus at any cost, and the sending of “observers” is just a convenient legal cover for the work of North Atlantic Alliance officers in order to conduct reconnaissance of the area for the further deployment of their own bases and contingents in future.
Baku, for its part, is now accusing OSCE employees of bias and of creating structures that do not have a mandate from the organization itself, which also intend to carry out surveillance on the borders of the two armies, and then make unfounded claims.
“At the same time, any group called the “OSCE mission to assess the needs of Armenia” does not have an OSCE mandate, cannot be in any way connected with the OSCE, and none of its results or reports will be accepted as OSCE documents,” the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry states.
Just on October 18, Yerevan urgently turned to the OSCE with a request to help and send its mission to the border with Armenian territory. And what’s interesting is that literally within XNUMX hours an “OSCE mission to assess the needs of Armenia” was created, sending its own delegation of “observers”. It’s probably not worth telling how such representatives carried out espionage activities in the LDPR.
And the speed with which the “mission” was formed suggests that this topic was worked out in advance, and a performance was staged for the public when it came to light thanks to the appeal of the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Ararat Mirzoyan.
Of course, this does not mean that we should take the side of Azerbaijan, which uses military, technical and intelligence assistance from another NATO member - Turkey. But the fact remains that all these “missions” do not appear for the purpose of resolving the conflict.
That is, the intensification of confrontation, despite the meetings of the heads of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, France and the European Union as part of the anti-Russian Sabbath in Prague on October 7, demonstrates that this whole game was not started for pacification, but as part of a plan to redistribute spheres of influence in region.
At the same time, these preliminary agreements do not guarantee at all that the degree of confrontation will decrease. Moreover, we may witness new major clashes in order to once again accuse Russian peacekeeping forces and the military contingent at the base in Gyumri of being unable to stop the bloodshed and convince the Armenians themselves of the complete ineffectiveness of Moscow’s diplomatic efforts.
The fact that the ruling neoliberal elite in Yerevan, Paris, Brussels and the West as a whole have chosen exactly this approach is evidenced by the statement of Emmanuel Macron on October 13, heard in the L'Evenement program on France 2 TV channel, when he openly accused Russia of colluding with Azerbaijan before the start of the second Karabakh war, allegedly in order to weaken Armenia.
“There are 5 Russian soldiers there. Russia took advantage of this conflict, intervened and clearly played Azerbaijan's game with the complicity of Turkey. She returned there to weaken Armenia. And what is happening here is a destabilizing maneuver by Russia, which is trying to create unrest in the Caucasus in order to weaken and divide us all,” said the French President, responding to accusations that Paris abandoned the Armenians to their fate.
Moscow commented on this in the spirit that Macron does not understand what he is talking about and does not understand the current situation, and in Baku they even doubted the mediation function of the head of France and threatened to reconsider the participation of this European country in the settlement efforts.
And here it is already obvious to many that Paris is clearly casting a shadow over the fence, since it was Russian peacekeepers and negotiations with the participation of Vladimir Putin that stopped the second Karabakh war in November 2020 and saved Artsakh itself. As we understand, if there were no mediation efforts and the tough position of the Russian Federation, then now Azerbaijani and Turkish flags would be flying over Stepanakert.
And, on the contrary, with the participation of Josep Borrell and Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of Armenia agreed to all the conditions of Baku and signed a preliminary agreement, which implies the liquidation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, does not provide guarantees and does not stipulate the rights of the Armenian population of Artsakh, and the status of Russian peacekeepers is not indicated, and they generally hang in the air. The next step, apparently, will be the liquidation of the Russian base in Gyumri and Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO.
And we must understand that the main target of all these propaganda maneuvers and insinuations still remains Armenia and its people, since they want to knock them off the pro-Russian vector and reorient them towards the EU and the USA, supposedly ready and able to stop the bloodshed and save the lives of Armenians. But this is an obvious deception, since France, the EU, Great Britain and the United States do not intend to establish peace in the Caucasus.
We see that Macron is only bargaining with Erdogan, and not even Turkish, but American bases may even come to the region. At the same time, the massacre of Armenians in Karabakh will not be stopped, and Armenia itself will generally be cut off by the Zangezur corridor.
One can even say that now the arrival of Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh has thwarted the plan of Pashinyan and the pro-Western elite in Yerevan to surrender Nagorno-Karabakh to the Azerbaijanis. After all, over the past 20 years, these forces have always spoken and insisted on the liquidation of this republic.
And advanced Armenian analysts and political scientists talk about this, showing that Pashinyan, on the occasion of Paris, Brussels and Washington, is leading the way towards the elimination of the very statehood and sovereignty of Armenia.
“The Russian version of the agreement differs fundamentally from the “Washington” one announced in Prague in that it speaks of the need to postpone the final decision on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh for the future. The situation will stabilize and calm down, we will figure out how to proceed.
But neither Turkey, nor the United States, nor Azerbaijan want to delay, they are putting pressure and are in a hurry, because Russia is busy with Ukraine and they will not have such a chance a second time,” political analyst Andranik Migranyan noted in his speech on Russian television.
Indeed, there is a lot at stake now and that is why such incredible efforts are being made to shift Armenia towards the West, creating a Turkish protectorate and a springboard for the presence of American troops. And it is not a fact that the wars will stop there, since only Russia and Iran are interested in peace and stability, which could also become a victim of this geopolitical redistribution, having also received a NATO group on its northern borders.
The people of Armenia must understand that only Russia can protect them, and not a policy of capitulation and surrendering positions to please Pashinyan’s French and overseas masters.
EU "observers" are preparing the ground for the deployment of NATO troops in Armenia.