The Kremlin is inflating separatism in Azerbaijan to implement the Crimean scenario

Oligarch Ruben Vardanyan who leads the Armenian separatist enclave in the zone of control of the Russian military contingent in Azerbaijani Karabakh, publicly falsifies data on the size of the "ward" population. Ruben Vardanyan and his Kremlin handlers inflate the number of residents of the separatist enclave by at least 3 times, although in reality this figure does not exceed 40,000. At the same time, Russia uses propaganda to artificially escalate a humanitarian catastrophe in the Azerbaijani region, which does not exist there. With the help of its separatist Armenian proxy forces, the Kremlin is trying to repeat the Crimean scenario in Karabakh for further occupation and annexation of this territory.

The Kremlin’s protege at the head of the Armenian separatist enclave in Azerbaijani Karabakh, a former member of the "expert councils" under the president and government of the Russian Federation, Ruben Vardanyan, claims that as a result of the protest of Azerbaijani eco-activists, "the lives of more than 120 thousand" Armenians of Karabakh were "on the verge of humanitarian catastrophe". The peaceful protest of eco-activists began on December 12, 2022 near the Azerbaijani city of Shusha, through which the highway to Armenia passes from the city of Khankendi inhabited by Karabakh Armenians. Participants of the protest stand against the exploitation of gold deposits in Azerbaijani territory, which is under the control of the Russian military contingent. Azerbaijani activists do not obstruct the passage of civilian and humanitarian vehicles. However, the separatist leadership in Karabakh artificially creates a food shortage in order to make an appearance of a "humanitarian catastrophe" and blame Azerbaijan for this. At the same time, Azerbaijani environmental activists operate within the framework of International Humanitarian Law and the Berne Convention, which allows blocking the export of minerals and other resources (in this case, gold from the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh), as well as blocking the movement and reinforcement of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Karabakh. On December 20, 2022, Vardanyan stated: "The worse our situation gets, the better our demands and voice will be heard in the world". In order to create an impression of the mass nature of the "humanitarian catastrophe", this protege of the Kremlin, his Moscow curators and close associates emphasize on the fact that the number of Armenians in Karabakh, in the zone of control of the Russian military contingent, allegedly exceeds 120,000 people, although after the war no more than 40,000 actually live there. There is no blocking, and the Berne convention confirms the fact that the pro-Russian and Armenian forces use the minerals of the region… But the activists do not block food and commercial shipments… They only demonstrating the fact of robbery.

At the same time, there is no famine and humanitarian catastrophe in Karabakh, because activists allow the passage of humanitarian supplies with food, medicine, clothing and other goods necessary for the life of the Armenian minority.

In particular, Volodymyr Kreidenko, a Ukrainian MP from the "Servant of the People" party, showed a video in which activists freely and in large quantities ordered pizza, burgers, and other food from local shops and restaurants in the region, which indicates that there is no humanitarian catastrophe in Karabakh. This talk about the famine of the Armenian minorities is a hybrid disinformation operation by the Kremlin and its Armenian proxy forces.

Manipulations with demographic data used by the Kremlin separatism

Ruben Vardanyan repeats in almost every speech the figure of 120,000 people living in Karabakh: "120,000 people are facing a humanitarian catastrophe", he noted on December 22 in an address to the Spanish Parliament. Vardanyan also spoke about "120 thousand Armenians" on December 29 in an interview with the "New Newspaper of Europe".

On December 20, 2022, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Zatulin also said on the air of the propaganda First Channel of the Russian Federation: "120 thousand people who remain in Nagorno-Karabakh".

The repetition of this figure by the protege of the Kremlin and his Moscow patrons is carried out according to the scheme used by Putin to justify the seizure of the Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine. Then the Kremlin started the war and the annexation of Ukrainian territories, justifying this by protecting Russians from repression and genocide.

In all statements on this subject, the Kremlin dictator Putin voiced the same "number":

· Regarding the annexation of Crimea (March18, 14): "Millions of Russian people live in Crimea".

· On the recognition of the separatist enclaves of Donbas (February 24, 22): "It was necessary to immediately stop this nightmare, the genocide against the millions of people living there".

· On the annexation of the territories of the East of Ukraine (September 30, 22): "there is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who… consider themselves part of Russia".

According to the official data of the previous separatist leadership (Vardanyan came to power in November 2022), in 2017 the population of the enclave within its former borders, including 7 occupied regions of Azerbaijan (later liberated as a result of the 2020 war), was 147,000 people. However, as an employee of the "Aiuto alla Chiesa che soffre" (ACS) Catholic Foundation, who participated in a mission to collect data on refugees in Karabakh in 2021, explained to us, the real number of the Armenian population there before the start of the war was about 103,000. According to him, the separatist leadership inflated the number of inhabitants of the enclave by about 30%. This was done to hide the constant outflow of the population to Armenia and the Russian Federation due to the difficult socio-economic situation and corruption. In addition, the enclave authorities used inflated demographic data to justify claims to 20% of the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, occupied with the support of the Russian military in 1991-1993. In order to "compensate" the outflow of the population, Armenian refugees from Syria were placed on the occupied lands.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as a result of the war that ended on November 10, 20, 91,000 Armenians of Karabakh moved to Armenia. According to the data of the Vatican, collected in Karabakh in October 2021 by the mission of the ACS Foundation, only about 25,000 out of 91,000 returned after the war. During the past year, there were no reports of a mass return of Armenians to Karabakh, even from the separatist leadership. Thus, the real population of the Armenian enclave in Karabakh is no more than 40,000 (103,000 — 91,000 + 25,000). It means that the separatists and their Moscow curators 3 times overestimate the number of Armenians in the zone of control of the Russian military contingent. As our interlocutor at the ACS explained, the absolute majority of those who returned were those who previously lived in settlements that, entered the zone of control of the Russian military contingent as a result of the war. The Armenians did not return to the areas that were returned under the control of Azerbaijan after the war — after the end of hostilities, many came to pick up their belongings, and then finally moved to Armenia. In turn, the authorities of the separatist enclave and the command of the Russian military contingent are still including them in the actual population of the area under Russian control. This is done to "inflate" the demographics of the separatist enclave. Thus, in February 2021, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced the return of 52,712 Armenians to Karabakh, despite the fact that, according to the ACS Catholic Foundation, even by the end of that year, the number of those returning did not exceed 25,000.

The Kremlin wants to repeat the Crimean scenario in Karabakh

Data on the size of the Armenian population in the Russian zone of control in Karabakh is falsified not only to accuse Azerbaijan of a massive "humanitarian catastrophe". The Kremlin similarly uses separatism in the territories of Ukraine and Azerbaijan for the regional expansion and to maintain military footholds in the neighbouring countries. In both cases, the Russian Federation uses similar methods to incite separatism and use it in its own interests.

With the beginning of a full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the Armenian separatists of Karabakh, as well as the politicians of neighbouring Armenia began advocating for the strengthening of the Russian military contingent, the need for its indefinite stay there, and for holding a referendum on joining the Russian Federation. At the same time, they did not even hide the fact that they considered the annexation of Crimea as a model.

On March 18 last year, the former head of the delegation of the National Assembly of Armenia to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Geghamyan stated: "A referendum should be held in Artsakh on one of the issues on the agenda, which concerns joining Russia, as in Crimea eight years ago".

On March 25, 2022, the "Security Council" of the separatist enclave approved an appeal to the Kremlin dictator with a request to "review the current number of Russian peacekeepers and the number of facilities serving them and, accordingly, increase the number of military personnel and military equipment" in Azerbaijani Karabakh.

On March 31, the former head of the Askeran region of Karabakh, Barseghyan, called on the separatist authorities to "organize a national referendum on the annexation of Artsakh to the Russian Federation as soon as possible".

On April 6, the Armenian edition of "Hrapark" quoted an informed source in Khankendi (the administrative centre of the Armenian enclave): "If Armenia washes its hands in Artsakh and recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, we will have no choice but to join Russia. Therefore, we will start collecting signatures".

On April 8, during the protest in support of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, held in the Victory Park of Yerevan, the former acting director of the National Security Service of Armenia Hambardzumyan said: "In Artsakh, they began to collect signatures with the hope of collecting enough to raise the issue of joining Russia".

On April 12, the "president" of the separatists Harutyunyan announced that the Armenian enclave in Karabakh "may have some kind of relationship with Russia in the format of a direct vertical".

In this regard, he noted that the military presence of the Russian Federation "should be guaranteed and indefinite with a corresponding increase in military personnel and military equipment". On April 14, ex-Prime Minister of Armenia Bagratyan stated: "Artsakh wants to become part of Russia".

He called it positive that "Artsakh and Russia have vertical relations". The following day, the retired colonel Nahapetyan stressed on the Armenian Live News channel that the only way for the separatist enclave to ensure its security was to become part of Russia. As one of the ways to achieve this goal, he outlined the mass receipt of Russian passports by the Armenian population of Karabakh — according to the scheme run in during the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas. Nahapetyan frankly explained that the Armenians of Karabakh should apply "to the Russian embassy in Armenia for granting Russian citizenship. That is, they receive dual citizenship — Russia and Armenia. Thus, you get an unrecognized, but real territory inhabited by citizens of the Russian Federation. In this case, you give not only the moral, but also the legal right of Russia to intervene in the process".

On May 10, the former head of the delegation of the National Assembly of Armenia to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Geghamyan, stated: "The Republic of Artsakh shall officially apply to the authorities of the Russian Federation in order to become part of the Russian Federation. How it happened in 2014 in Crimea".

Thus, Russia is trying to repeat the Crimean scenario in Azerbaijan, using Armenian proxy forces, propaganda and demographic falsifications of the Armenian minority living in Karabakh. On the other hand, Ukraine is defending not only democracy, itself and Eastern Europe, but also many post-Soviet countries in which the Kremlin is trying to implement old separatist scenarios, sow instability and undermine international humanitarian law.