2023 August 4

Daily news wrap-up

Interviews: || Nagorno-Karabakh resolution || $1 billion on weapons contracts || Army reforms || Flashback 1992 || Russian tech giants "spying" for Azerbaijan || ...
by ar_david_hh

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12 minutes read

ex-PM Aram Sargsyan presents scenarios for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

SARGSYAN: Stepanakert must agree to a dialogue with Baku in the presence of an international actor. International peacekeepers must be stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh for a minimum of 10-15 years.

Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army will turn into a police, as it was done in Kosovo. They will only have light weapons such as rifles.

During those 15 years, the Nagorno-Karabakh population will continue to elect its leaders and form the judiciary and other institutions. In the meantime, they will negotiate with Azerbaijan to clarify the final status.

If the two reach an agreement around a concept, let's say Macao-China, then the conflict will end. But Ilham Aliyev would undoubtedly reject such a proposal and continue to behave like Vladimir Putin. In this case, we'll be headed to the Kosovo scenario with [secession for salvation](https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/159ts5a/press_conference_by_pashinyan_negotiation_process/).

During the 2020 war, after the threat by Azerbaijan to enter Stepanakert, the French Senate began discussing the formal recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state, while two U.S. states proceeded to officially recognize it. It was a message to Baku not to violate international norms.

(1) Armenia must contact the UN's ethnic cleansing and genocide prevention commission. PM Pashinyan mentioned it 2 months ago but they haven't contacted them yet.

(2) The issue of the Lachin Corridor should be discussed separately under the U.S.-led negotiation platform because there is a separate World Court ruling on that. For this to happen, the Nagorno-Karabakh government must ask the Armenian government to negotiate with U.S. and France to hold a UN Security Council session to discuss the humanitarian disaster caused by the blockade. In this case, Russia and China cannot veto it because the UNSC is not a judiciary structure and cannot claim the World Court's ruling was "illegal". *[Pashinyan recently said that before they contact the UNSC, preparatory "lobbying" is underway to ensure Armenia will have enough support at UNSC among the majority of non-permanent members and all permanent members.]*

Azerbaijan will have to open the Lachin Corridor if the UNSC instructs it to, or else they'll face consequences like a weapons embargo. Azerbaijan won't risk that. With the Lachin Corridor opened, the rest of the topics can be discussed around the negotiation table.

(3) Nagorno-Karabakh must recognize the independence of Kosovo and highlight their similarities, the ethnic cleansing. They will gain nothing by recognizing Luhansk and Donbas as part of Russia.

(4) Nagorno-Karabakh must request to be a member of the World Trade Organization. France and the West in general will help them once the request is sent. You don't have to be an officially recognized state to join WTO. The old licenses granted to the Nagorno-Karabakh government will become legally valid. Azerbaijan's hands will be tied to a degree during the status talks.

Joining WTO would also grant them a level of recognition and independence. They can contact the World Health Organization and also the Red Cross. New opportunities will open up.

REPORTER: The president of Nagorno-Karabakh Arayik Harutyunyan recently sent a letter to Vladimir Putin asking for help. Putin's office never replied, while Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed she doesn't even know any president named Arayik Harutyunyan.

SARGSYAN: That's expected because Azerbaijan has purchased Maria Zakharova for a few million dollars. Lavrov and Zakharova are more likely to criticize Putin than Aliyev. Armenia, too, should spend money on lobbying but not in Russia.

As for President Arayik's letter to Putin, I think and I hope this was the message to Moscow: Either order your peacekeepers to do their duties or give us a corridor for the entire population to leave the region. Albanians of Kosovo did this. When Serbs intruded and killed 50 Kosovo policemen, Kosovars requested a humanitarian corridor to leave their lands.

India is selling weapons to Armenia today. Pentagon could have blocked the sales if it wanted to because the weapons contain U.S. technologies. Armenian suicide drones are more precise today because they use a positioning system that works better than your car's GPS. We will soon have similarly high-quality optical devices.

Azerbaijan sees this. They interpret this as pressure by the West to choose diplomacy. France doesn't need to send its army to Armenia, they just need to help balance the powers by supplying armament to Armenia. The West did this during the recent Greco-Turkish escalation by supporting Greece.

REPORTER: Is Armenia buying 6th-generation air-defense systems from France?

SARGSYAN: I'm not aware of any such contracts but we are importing Indian weapons according to my contacts in the military. I also know the latest developments in the domestic military industry. The state has been providing 100% of the necessary funds lately.

The bottleneck is the production capacity of our domestic manufacturers. Drone manufacturers have only been able to absorb 20% of the state-issued funds due to a lack of capacity. Why only 20%? Because importing components and automating the production isn't an easy task. Their main issue is with geolocation and optics. Efforts are underway to address that.

REPORTER: How quickly is Armenia restoring the military balance with Azerbaijan?

SARGSYAN: They are working at full capacity. Armenia has placed orders to acquire weapons worth $1 billion, including $100m on domestic producers. I believe less than 30% of it has been delivered so far. The delivery process is complicated. For example, any military cargo traveling from India-Hormuz-Iran has to undergo lengthy checks [to ensure Russia isn't the destination]. Europeans claim this process isn't too long according to their standards, but I think it's too cumbersome.

As I've said, we need an additional 5 years to restore the military balance. Azerbaijan got there in 26 years but we can do it in 5 if the current pace is maintained. Even better if we can score the latest generation weapons from the West.

REPORTER: You've mentioned $1b in weapons contracts. Does this include the $200m that Russia took but never delivered?

SARGSYAN: I don't think so. My source provided this information 4-5 months ago.

60 million Kurds don't have their country. Armenians not only have a state, but we want to create a second one. This will require sacrifices and risky moves. The question is, is the government ready to take the risks?

[source,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rxvsS0vRkM?t=1520)

using Russian tech services allows Azerbaijan to intercept your personal information through their ties in Russia: interview with Karen Sargsyan

REPORTER: You're active on Twitter now.

KAREN: Twitter is the "newsmaker" platform. That's where influential figures get their news from. Yet we only have 90,000 users there.

REPORTER: You're against allowing Russia's RosTelecom to open a data & AI center in Armenia. Those who help are "criminals". Explain.

KAREN: AI is the next stage of evolution, the "post-information" realm. Industrial -> post-industrial -> information -> post-information. The latter isn't just about data anymore, it's about the rapid processing and virtualization of immense volumes of data that substantially reduces the need for mental work.

For decades, the economy developed through optimizations in physical labor, then by automation, followed by information becoming the key player in the era of the internet.

The West has imposed high-tech sanctions on Russia. The Armenian government should not allow or assist RosTelecom's subsidiary GNC-Alfa to build a data center in Armenia.

QUESTION: What is the problem with them investing in Armenia? The servers will be located and serviced in Armenia, while the users can be from Russia?

KAREN: No one can tell who the users will be because it all belongs to RosTelecom. What happens if Russia "calculates" its nuclear strikes with the use of RosTelecom servers in Armenia?

RosTelecom used to pass its data through Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan could see all the data. What if our military uses their servers for calculations and it gets intercepted?

[Russia's Google] Yandex is collecting a crazy amount of personal data from taxi drivers now. People are finally waking up and rejecting it. "Do you want my child's DNA profile, too?"

... banging cocktail waitresses two at a time

KAREN: Do you know how Azeris convince Armenian soldiers to commit treason in exchange for only $300? Every Armenian military base has an ATM from a Russian bank. Many soldiers use a card from a Russian bank. When you use their card, they can see everything you do, every poker game you play, every pr0n site you're subscribed to, and all the unpaid loans that you have.

That Russian bank [referring to VTB] belongs to a person whose girlfriend is working for Azerbaijan. Azeri agents then find vulnerable Armenian soldiers and offer to pay off their $400 debt in exchange for classified information. *"Can I pay off your $400 loan so your wife won't find out you went to bang prostitutes?"*. The targets aren't chosen randomly. We must shut down VTB and Yandex now.

These companies have long been cooperating with Azerbaijan. Today Russia is low on cash. They will sell your data to Azerbaijan when an opportunity arises.

Close your Russian accounts and uninstall apps from mail ru, rambler, Yandex, VKontakte, etc. If you *must* use Yandex Taxi, at least configure your phone to allow GPS access *only* while actively using the app.

They don't need a Bayraktar to spy on you. You are volunteering to give your data.

... Ilham Aliyev's interview with Euronews

KAREN: It was a great interview. Aliyev was nervous because of uncomfortable questions, repeatedly popping his fingers and knuckles. He directly confessed to attempting to carry out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The interview made many opposition figures in Azerbaijan cringe. It needs to be publicized. Go watch the interview in English, not the Russian translation. And make sure to collect all the confessions for his future trial in Hague.

[source,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRTCr_35qX8)

interview with private military camp leader Vova Vartanov: Russia's role in the South Caucasus; farmlands in Nagorno-Karabakh; army reforms

REPORTER: Azerbaijan forcefully kidnapped a resident of Nagorno-Karabakh who was being transported by the Red Cross to Armenia for heart surgery. What does this mean?

VOVA: That means all the calls for "integration", in particular for those ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh who hold an Armenian passport, are bogus. Azerbaijan will create a concentration camp and commit ethnic cleansing through various policies. That's what Azerbaijan attempted in 1992-1993.

When Azeris attacked in June 1992, Russian forces were leading the assault. The two invaded Nagorno-Karabakh's Shahumyan region and parts of Martakert, Askeran, and Hadrut.

With the help of Russian forces, Azeris attempted to shut down the Lachin Corridor. Azeris then realized they didn't need Russian help anymore because Armenians were weak enough.

So Azeris started expelling the Russians starting July 1992, they wanted to change the actor. They removed the segments of Russia's 104 airborne division that had taken part in the invasion of Shahumyan; the 23th motor-rifle division that helped invade Askeran with 60+ pieces of equipment; the 60th division that helped blockade the Lachin Corridor with its long-range airstrikes on Armenian columns.

After being betrayed by Azeris, Russians realized they could cooperate with Armenians. Starting in August, Russia began delivering Soviet equipment to Armenia. They had previously delivered 20x as many weapons to Azerbaijan starting April.

So the strategic cooperation agreement signed between Russia and Azerbaijan in 2022 wasn't their first.

Today, Russia and Iran want to keep the Turkish influence out of this region, while the West wants to control the region with the help of Turks. Armenia needs to calculate what the most beneficial option is.

If the West wants to sacrifice 120,000 ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh so it can remove 2,000 Russian peacekeepers from the region, then that's not a good option for us. But if Armenia is smart, it can suck on two nipples simultaneously. For that, Armenia must become more attractive in the eyes of major players.

Today Armenia is full of obese pregnant men in sportswear who do nothing but cook BBQ while exposing their buttcracks every time they squat. This pregnant man doesn't give a crap about important issues. This will only change when Armenia starts working on self-improvement. Start working on trenches, fortifications, food reserves, and losing some weight.

The topic of food reserves is an important one. An important criticism was raised about crops, eggplants, and tomatoes. Don't be a moron who wastes time by joining an anti- or pro-Pashinyan camp on the recent eggplant topic. We must plant more crops and buy food from Russia for our reserves. We must try to score some free wheat from Russia. [After breaking the grain deal], Russia found itself with excess amounts of wheat and started giving it away to African countries.

Our mistake was not populating the liberated areas of Nagorno-Karabakh after the 1st war and not cultivating those lands. By the way, in general, Nagorno-Karabakh has enough fields to be self-sustainable but only in the spring and summer months.

REPORTER: But the population is heavily concentrated around the capital Stepanakert.

VOVA: That problem exists in Yerevan and Stepanakert. Why are there so many cars on the road during work hours? There are many cars with fuel on the streets of Stepanakert, yet the government can't deliver fuel to farmers so they can deliver food to Stepanakert.

Stalingrad survived - well, at least half of the population - by converting every strip of grass into crops. St. Petersburg, located in a cold environment without sun, was able to partially take care of itself.

Up until 2020 a significant portion of Nagorno-Karabakh fields were owned and operated by non-locals. A guy from Armenia's Artashat owned a vast swathe of land in Aghdam. Nagorno-Karabakh had to import even TOMATOES during the summer months. Instead of relying on the imports of Turkish tomatoes, Armenia could have imported them from Nagorno-Karabakh. We are very lazy and shortsighted people.

Why is the government of Armenia still allowing lands to go unused in Armenia? Take out the whip and confiscate lands from owners who refuse to cultivate them.

The Defense Ministry is finally showing interest in the second line of defense. It used to be that only VOMA was taking care of fortifications there. Today the Ministry is "competing" with us. We just need the government to do the same with agriculture.

REPORTER: Do you support Pashinyan's decisions to appoint members of his political team to the positions of Defense Minister and Deputy Defense Minister?

VOVA: Ideally the Defense Minister should have an extensive military background but having a political ally is good in a way that it ensures stability in the country because it reduces the likelihood of an armed coup. This is also why I'm against the proposed amendment that would provide military-grade weapons to members of non-army military-training structures. It's a risky move to have "armed groups".

REPORTER: Ex-MoD Davit Tonoyan supported the decision to acquire the Su-30SM jets, calling them necessary for the future modernization of our army.

VOVA: During Serj's presidency I was highly critical of our doctrine for being overwhelmingly focused on defense. If you only defend yourself, you are essentially a rock that will eventually turn into sand when struck too many times.

Then came the Pashinyan administration and announced plans to populate the empty territories of Nagorno-Karabakh, and decided to develop an offense-oriented airforce. That was a much welcoming change but sadly it wasn't executed properly because they didn't symmetrically develop the ground troops to "keep up" with the new aviation. Your attack jets will be downed if you're underperforming on the ground. We needed ground forces that could attack, in addition to being able to defend.

If we were going to maintain our ground forces' strategy to defense-only, then we should have acquired defense-oriented jets or faster MiG jets, and not a jet designed to strike Baku. It turns out we were obtaining offensive weapons but not training offensive troops, at least not until 2020.

You may not remember this but 20 years ago an Armenian leader went to the UN and bragged that Armenia could capture even more territories and "turn the 20% into a 30%" [percentage of its lands that Azerbaijan claims Armenians were "occupying"]. Something similar was stated by MoD Davit Tonoyan in 2019: "New war, new territories."

We thought a single Iskander missile would be enough to chop Aliyev's mustache and discredit him during family dinners. The same about Su-30SM jets.

But war is a complex thing. It all starts with your first-aid skills, someone else's firing skills, and another person's skills to calculate a tactic.

Our army reforms can be effective only if you change the brain. Appointing an outsider Minister and expecting him to be able to reform the army isn't going to work unless you carry out a systemic change and implement a new mentality towards the military work and the soldier.

Recently I watched an interview by a "genius" former Deputy CoGS who announced that we lost the war because the army was reinforced with unprepared mobilized troops. A few sentences later he said, "We have always trained our mobilized forces". So which is it, we had a prepared or unprepared mob? This is a system issue, this is their mentality. It's not really their fault because they were trained that way.

They've been tasked with filling out square boxes on paper for decades. Their brain has become square-ish. They may even believe the planet is square. While choosing tires, I'm confident that they look for square ones first. Anything circle causes cognitive dissonance. Everything must be square because a square has corners: nachalnik corner, subordinate corner, .... "Obey me, I'm your boss, I know better than you."

[source,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GngoecM60m0)

naming and shaming

A new law has gone into effect to discourage gas stations from cheating customers. Stations that are caught with gas pump scams will have to pay a fine and install a giant message confessing that they were fined for swindling their customers. [Here is an example](https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/265728).

[source,](https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/265728)

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Link to original report and comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/15ii8mw/interviews_nagornokarabakh_resolution_1_billion/