Armenia’s Armed Forces have concluded the ninth day of fighting as Artsakh’s capital city of Stepanakert continues to get pulverized by Azerbaijan’s intense shelling.
Nineteen civilians, including women and children, have died and more than 80 people have been wounded according to Artsakh Ombudsman Artak Beglaryan, who has been at the helm of the social media campaign “Don’t be Blind”—an urgent call to the international community to recognize war crimes perpetrated by Azerbaijan’s government. During Monday’s briefing, Beglaryan said Azeri forces are intentionally striking civilian infrastructures in Stepanakert, damaging more than two-thousand buildings, including schools and energy sources. These targeted operations, Beglaryan reinforced, are “crimes against humanity.” “Azerbaijan is doing this with malicious intent in order to terrorize the populations,” he said, just before tweeting his endorsement for an investigation by Amnesty International’s Crisis Response experts, who condemned the prohibited use of Israeli-made M095 cluster munitions. The international human rights organization also insisted that the protection of human life must be a priority.
Cluster munitions as well as Smerch and LAR-160 multiple rocket launchers are part of a prohibited arsenal of weapons that are being deployed with criminal intent against Armenian civilians in places like Stepanakert and Hadrut, according to Arman Tatoyan, Armenia’s Human Rights Defender. “Calls and statements without calling out the perpetrator will no longer stop this from leading to a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said during an evening press briefing.
The National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh in a statement issued Monday addressed the indiscriminate use of banned weaponry and the continued aggression of Azerbaijan and its partner Turkey, stressing the necessity of international recognition of the Republic as “the most effective way to put an end to the ongoing grave crimes against the peaceful population of Artsakh, and to protect their rights.” Continuing in the statement, the National Assembly emphasized the involvement of Turkey and its mercenary fighters, as well as its “de facto command and control of the military operations” in the intensifying and ongoing aggression against the Republic of Artsakh.
Also on Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada, at the urging of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, announced that it would suspend arms exports to Turkey amid emerging evidence that Canadian-developed sensor technology is being used by Turkish drones deployed in Artsakh. In a statement, The Honorable François-Philippe Champagne said he has suspended the relevant export permits to Turkey in order to investigate the issue “in line with Canada’s robust export control regime.”
Meanwhile, Canada’s Armenian counterpart has commented on the Armenian government’s evidence of a falsified photo released by the Azerbaijani leadership. The photo in question showed a missile that landed in the city of Mingachevir, but did not explode, refuting Azerbaijan’s allegations that the rocket was fired from Armenian territory. Armenian officials say Mingachevir is located 108 kilometers from the Armenian border, and that it is impossible to launch a rocket from that distance. Moreover, Armenian military experts say it is clear from the photograph that the missile did not hit the ground, but rather was carefully brought and placed in a hole. “The aim of this disinformation campaign is to cover up the massive shelling of the large settlements of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan since the first day of the war,” declared the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Armenia could not attack Mingechevir. Here is why. #ArtsakhStrong #NKpeace #StopAzernaijaniAgression pic.twitter.com/ItlJvTeu85
— Shushan Stepanyan (@ShStepanyan) October 5, 2020
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan’s son Ashot has signed up for Armenia’s Armed Forces as a volunteer following his father’s call for soldiers demobilized within the past year to re-enlist. The 20 year-old was demobilized in July after completing the two-year compulsory military service. “I have come to the conclusion that the most combat-ready segment of our society are the boys who were demobilized during the last year. I want to call upon all demobilized soldiers to present themselves to the central enlistment base starting immediately and enlist in the army to take part in this new Sardarabad,” said the Prime Minister during a Facebook Live address. “You are not being called to carry out combat duty. You are being called in a struggle of life and death for your homeland.”
Military officials added 21 additional soldiers to their list of martyred heroes today, increasing the total of military casualties to 220.
Well, as long as Azerbaijan continues to acquire so many of these highly destructive military weapons from Israel, it will continue to use them against the civilians of Stepanakert, Hadrut, and other towns in Artsakh. Therefore, Prime Minister Pashinyan needs to harshly condemn Israel for being an accomplice to the campaign of terror that Azerbaijan and Turkey have unleashed against the civilians of Artsakh.
Armenian PM is doing much more than that. Now the real question is, what do YOU do for your country and the military?
I wasn’t talking about what Pashinyan has done as the Prime Minister of Armenia. Go back and carefully read what I wrote.
In response to your question, I’m doing equally as much for Armenia as everyone else here in Armenia (but, of course, it’s the soldiers who are always doing the most for Armenia). And, if the Turkbaijanis/Turks ever manage to enter into Hayastan, I, along with my fellow Yerevantsis will most definitely join together with the Armenian military forces to defend this country. Yes, indeed!
This is Pashinyan’s war. Let’s be clear. The hostilities started when Turkey saw weakness between Russia and Armenia.
Blood of Armenian soldiers is on the hands of those who brought Pashinyan to power.
Russia is letting Armenia twist in the wind, until those in Yerevan submit to Moscow, rather than playing complementary politics, and trying to appease Washington DC and George Soros.
Please, read your history books. The Treaty of Stefano, a result if the 1878 Berlin Conference between Russian and Turkey was meant to protect Armenians from massacres by the Ottoman Empire. In 1896, Sultan Abdul Hamid ordered the massacre of 100,000 Armenian civilians. I 1915, The Young Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians in one of the first Genocides of the 20th century. Attatirk encouraged the massacre of Anataolian Greeks and Armenians via the arson of Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922. Turkey’s Penal Code 301 law bans admitting that Armenian Genocide is a historic fact. In 2017 the Russian government decides to sell their most advanced anti-aircraft defense system to Turkey, the S-400. Pashinyan, a new leader lionized by the Western press and some of the Diaspora, thought he could build a better trade relationship with Iran, court the West while maintaining Russia as an ally. He was wrong. Neocons want to start war in Iran, and there first step is to sic an Israeli armed Azerbaijan and their Turkish backers on tiny Armenia and Artsakh. The war was coming and is driven by 1) Turkey’s insolvency, Turkey must have this war now, and in return Turkey will receive a major loan from the IMF after the war, 2) the war stops the rise of the China-to-Turkey Silk Belt, 3) prepares for a massive war with Iran, (most neocons think that Armenia is somehow a colony of Iran or Russia [this is a truly stupid idea. . .Armenian has a 4000 year old culture and sees itself as totally unique)
•Thank you Russia for sitting by and doing nothing while an Armenian fighter jet was shot down by Turkey over Armenian airspace
•Thank you Russia for selling arms to Azerbaijan whilst calling yourself an ally of Armenia
•Thank you Russia for calling on BOTH sides to de-escalate the conflict when you know Azerbaijan started it
“Blood of Armenian soldiers is on the hands of those who brought Pashinyan to power.”
How’s that? It certainly wasn’t Pashinyan who created all this terror; it was Aliyev and Erdogan who created all this terror, and launched an all-out military invasion against Artsakh. As a result, Armenian soldiers are being killed, in an attempt to defend Artsakh. Therefore, the correct thing to say is that the blood of Armenian soldiers, as well as the blood of Azerbaijani soldiers, is on the hands of Aliyev and Erdogan.
“Thank you Russia for selling arms to Azerbaijan whilst calling yourself an ally of Armenia.”
Since the war started on September 27th, Russia has supplied zero military arms to Azerbaijan. And even prior to that, Russia had not sold military arms to Azerbaijan in quite a long time. The vast majority of military weapons that the Azerbaijanis have been using against the Armenians were supplied by Israel and Turkey.
On the other hand, shortly before the war started, Russia delivered a huge supply of military arms to Armenia.
I am not surprised that Russians didn’t help. I wasn’t even expecting them to do. What surprises me is that there are still agents who have the nerve to blame our government for the inaction of our “ally” and they use the same Soros broken record for this. Since becoming PM, Pashinyan has been to Moscow at least 20 to 30 times while he hasn’t had even one official visit to lets say London. I don’t know what else he should do to prove his loyalty to Putin. Maybe a Putin tattoo on his forehead will help?
The worst thing about these kind of comments is that they completely change the subject. Our main subject should never be Russian or American or Indian help. If we want to live in that region, we should learn to take care of ourselves. A conventional army, no matter how strong it is, will never be able to withstand 90 million Turks and their extremist brothers. Armenia needs better deterrences, if it wants to exist. This is something we should have thought about right after the first Karabakh war. Sadly, as a nation we love to mourn our loss but we rarely learn from it. If our southern neighbor, Iran, did not have that huge arsenal of guided and unguided missiles, Americans and Israelis would have attacked their nuclear facilities years ago. We need to make it clear for the Sultans and Pashas that any new war will inflict enormous damage to their infrastructures and major cities. Armenia should start with acquiring and later manufacturing its own cruise missiles. Not just a few Iskanders but a formidable arsenal of missiles that can destroy all their major facilities in just a few hours. And yes, I know they can do the same. But that’s the whole idea behind modern deterrence. The damage on both sides will be so painful that no one will think about a new war.
Whether we will learn from our mistakes and be in a totally different situation ten years from now is a different story.