YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — A crowd of protesters poured into the Armenian capital’s central square Wednesday evening, first in small groups that mingled with families eating ice cream on benches, but then as a broad sea of angry faces.
Heavily armored riot police formed an iron barrier around the government building, whose windows had already been smashed by bricks thrown during a demonstration the previous evening. Chants rang out in support of the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijani troops had launched a lightning offensive the day before. Others in the crowd – a few thousand people – called for the resignation of Armenia’s embattled prime minister, liberal reformer Nikol Pashinyan, over the defeat and bloodshed.
The biggest fear is that many of the 100,000 Armenians in the enclave will be displaced by ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijani forces.
“The biggest problem is our prime minister because he is doing nothing to save lives and Azerbaijan is committing genocide,” said Van, a 36-year-old from Yerevan. “They wash their hands in innocence.”
Pashinyan was commander-in-chief in 2020 as Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bloody 44-day conflict over the breakaway territory, which lay within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders but has been controlled by its ethnic Armenian population since a war after the fall of the Soviet Union. Armenian forces lost large areas of territory and therefore had to rely on Russian peacekeepers to maintain the status quo.
However, with Moscow stuck in its all-out invasion of Ukraine, Azerbaijan has tightened its grip on Nagorno-Karabakh. First there was a months-long blockade of aid reaching the region, and then, on Tuesday morning, a blitzkrieg with tanks, troops and artillery fire. And on Wednesday, the territory’s leaders said they had been forced to accept a surrender agreement brokered by Moscow.
One day of war
This time, Pashinyan was keen to prevent the Armenian state from becoming involved in the fighting, despite his strong support for the Karabakh Armenians. On Tuesday evening, as fighting flared up again in the region, the prime minister said he would not allow internal or external forces to “draw the Republic of Armenia into military operations.”
With Azerbaijan’s troops, trained and equipped by its allies Turkey and Israel, outnumbered and outgunned, another war could pose a serious threat to Armenia’s existence – especially after Azerbaijani troops seized control of strategic areas during an invasion last September Highlights have taken over within its boundaries.
However, for many Armenians, Pashinyan’s stance is not good enough.
“This is a warning of genocide,” said Aspram Krpeyan, an opposition lawmaker who took part in the protests on Wednesday evening. “We should form a proper government that serves the Armenian nation and only the Armenian nation.”
But while criticism is pervasive, there are few alternatives, and beyond submitting his resignation, few can say what Pashinyan should do next.
In recent months, the Armenian government has sought to make a historic break with Russia, despite fears that the country is no longer a reliable security guarantor. The country has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time, invited US soldiers to joint exercises and withdrawn its representative from the Moscow-led CSTO military bloc. In an interview with POLITICO just last week, Pashinyan said Moscow peacekeepers had “failed” in their duties.
Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images
Now the Kremlin is trying to shift blame for the latest round of hostilities to Armenia’s increasingly pro-Western leader.
In a document obtained by the independent Russian news site Meduza on Wednesday, the country’s state media was instructed to point the finger at Pashinyan and his partners in the US and EU. Meanwhile, Armenia’s pro-Russian opposition parties are wasting no time in calling for a “provisional government” to deal with the crisis.
Pro-Russian politicians in Armenia are trying to make political capital out of the military catastrophe, but there is little practical support that Russia can currently provide. “Even if there were some kind of attempt at regime change or a coup that would bring a more pro-Russian faction to power, I simply cannot imagine how they would stay in power given the complete disillusionment with Moscow’s role in Berg “Karabakh,” said Laurence Broers, an expert on the conflict at Chatham House. “But that doesn’t mean there won’t be explosions of frustration.”
Let down
Even Pashinyan’s own Foreign Ministry, which has spent years building closer ties with Western capitals, could not hide a sense of betrayal. Yerevan’s special envoy Edmon Marukyan posted a picture of the chaos unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh. He said: “This is tolerated by you” and named US and EU leaders, including European Council President Charles Michel and top Brussels diplomat Josep Borrell.
The EU is particularly cautious in its diplomatic interventions towards Armenia, having identified authoritarian Baku as a key ally in providing alternative gas supplies to Russia.
Meanwhile, fears of ethnic cleansing are growing, and Russia claims it has “evacuated” up to 2,000 Karabakh Armenians – where it has not said. In Stepanakert, the region’s de facto capital, thousands of people packed their bags and fled to Russian peacekeepers’ headquarters at a disused airport outside the city. But local people say they have not received food or water and have not found a way to safety.
Azerbaijan insists it is not trying to cause a mass exodus but has not put forward any plans for peaceful integration of Karabakh Armenians. All those who had lived in areas captured by Azerbaijani forces in 2020 were forced to flee the incoming armies. In some cases, such as an elderly couple who remained behind, they were reportedly executed and their bodies mutilated. Combined with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s boast of having “chased them out of our land like dogs,” many doubt that they will be able to continue living in the mountainous region if it falls under the control of his forces.
Accordingly Armenian officialsAs of Thursday evening, at least 200 people had been killed and 400 injured in the offensive. Social media channels are full of people searching for their lost relatives, many from rural parts of Nagorno-Karabakh where communication lines were cut.
“I am here because my family is being attacked,” said 20-year-old Daniella, a student from Stepanakert who joined the protests. “They hide in basements with no food and no water. I don’t think the Armenians can do anything, they did what they could.”
If widespread ethnic cleansing is to be averted, other countries – be it Russia, the USA or EU countries – must take action now, she said. “But they don’t do anything. They talk, they say words, but where are their actions?”