Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[burjuin]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Soldiers of Defense Army and volunteers defend the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic 's northeastern line of contact

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

BREAKING: UAV shot down over Vayots Tsor

[Haykakan]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Artsakh: A Target for Russian Military Blackmail


The Russian Embassy in Armenia has not refuted a story making the rounds in the local press that on May 9 the embassy’s second secretary declared that since Armenia hasn’t recognized Artsakh no Russian weapons could be sent there.

It cannot be ruled out that the embassy isn’t hastening to respond to this story since it really doesn’t give a damn about public opinion in Armenia and those perceptions that can give rise to a story rife with sub-contexts.

However, it is just as likely that the story is true and the embassy has no basis to refute it. On the other hand, the embassy just wanted to get a certain message across to the Armenian public in a non-official fashion.

It would seem that the embassy is prompting Armenia to recognize the NKR, presenting it as a precondition for providing arms to Armenia and counterbalancing Azerbaijani armaments. In reality, however, the sub-text of this statement is that Russia cannot or doesn’t want to supply Armenia with arms since it isn’t certain that the weapons will not wind up in Artsakh.

The fact is that Russia is clearly demanding that Armenia doesn’t recognize the NKR. Last week, the government of Armenia backed the conclusion of a bill recognizing the independence of the NKR. This was little more than saying that it would recognize Artsakh if external factors required such a step. In response, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that he hoped the sides wouldn’t take steps that would upset the delicate peace in the conflict zone. Russian foreign minister Dmitry Lavrov added that he had been told in Yerevan that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh would have to be resolved as part of a comprehensive settlement and not unilaterally. Thus, Lavrov openly said Yerevan had promised never to unilaterally recognize the NKR.

What is essential isn’t whether Yerevan gave Lavrov such assurances, or whether the Russian foreign minister is merely pressuring Yerevan not to go that route by making such a statement. What’s essential is that, on the one hand, the demand not to recognize the NKR is clearly being made of Armenia, while on the other hand, the demand is being made not to provide Artsakh with weapons received or purchased from Russia.

In other words, the Russian Embassy in Armenia is explaining, in a peculiar way, that Armenia isn’t receiving weapons so that they cannot be used in the Karabakh war and will not receive arms while such a risk exists.

Moscow’s real concern is based on two factors. The first is the warning, expressed by Yerevan, that immediately after Armenia recognized the NKR it will most probably sign a bilateral security treaty with it and will clash with Azerbaijan in order to guarantee the safety of Artsakh and its residents. Moscow realizes that if Armenia goes this route Yerevan might demand that Russia offer its assistance based on various military cooperation treaties. This eventuality is rife with risks of a new kind of military square-off between Russia and Turkey. So that Armenia doesn’t go down this path, Russia is demanding that Armenia doesn’t recognize the NKR and that it doesn’t transfer any Russian arms to Stepanakert.

The second factor are the various agreements that Russia has with Azerbaijan. These make it understandable why Russia isn’t quick to supply Armenia with the arms that Yerevan purchased with the $200 million Russian credit.

In March of this year, just a few days before the four-day war, when Russia published the entire list of the weapons that Armenia had purchased, a list considered secret, Azerbaijan sent a protest note to Moscow, demanding that it give guarantees that those weapons wouldn’t turn up on its ‘occupied lands’, that’s to say in Nagorno-Karabakh. In response, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs merely declared that Russia was maintaining the balance of power between the two sides and that Russia would never take steps that would harm its relations with Azerbaijan.

Immediately afterwards Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dimitri Rogozin made a surprise visit to Baku, allegedly to discuss with top Azerbaijani officials the issue of paying back the debts accumulated for military equipment received from Russia.

On April 7, in Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan asked that Russian PM Medvedev, intercede so that Russian military manufacturers accelerate the provision of armaments envisaged by the credit treaty.

This made it clear that Russia didn’t want to meet it treaty obligations regarding the provision of armaments and that Rogozin traveled to Baku not to collect any debts, but to assure Aliyev , who was planning to attack Artsakh, that none of those arms had arrived in Armenia and thus, that they hadn’t been sent to Karabakh.

Thus, Russia assured Baku that the Armenians didn’t have the military equipment needed to respond to any military moves made by Azerbaijan. In other words, Moscow didn’t take into account its strategic ally relations with Armenia, but rather the demands of the protest note sent by Azerbaijan.

For the second time, the Russian Embassy in Armenia has assured Baku that not only is that military equipment not in Artsakh but that Moscow perhaps might not provide Armenia with those armaments for as long as Yerevan does not back down from its threats to go to war with Azerbaijan in order to protect Artsakh.

This directly signifies that Russia’s actual demand from Yerevan is that does not get involved in any possible Azerbaijani military operations against the NKR; at least until the time that Moscow finds it necessary to grant such permission to Yerevan.

This can be called military blackmail.

In Moscow, however, they haven’t reckoned that this is pointless blackmail because, in Armenian and in Artsakh, the conflict is seen not only as a Karabakh issue but one of survival.

Thus, the greater the extent to which Russia exerts such blackmail, the quicker the process becomes that Moscow will lose Armenia, in every sense.

http://hetq.am/eng/news/67910/artsak...Ieq52A.twitter

This whole article is based on insinuations and general nothingness. Looks like Hetq is just another bs propaganda machine like Lragir. You guys need to weed out bs sources of news. Armenia and Artsakh should have merged long ago. Those Russian weapons are not due in Armenia until 2017. This article takes the normal delivery date and makes it look like some kind of conspiracy and you guys buy it hook line and sinker.

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

It's a new variant of Russian Orlan-10 drone.

BREAKING: UAV shot down over Vayots Tsor

[AbuSindi]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan



We always discuss potential military and economic targets in Azerbaijan. We discuss potential Armenian strikes on Baku's oil pipelines, their oil platforms, and even the Mingachevir Dam. We all pretty much agree these would have huge political risks for Armenia, and should only be done in a worst case scenario. Aliyev does not care about the lives of his soldiers, but one thing he does care about is his pocketbook. Apparently the Aliyev family holds numerous gold mines right within striking distance of our weapons. I feel like this would be less of a risk then attacking Mingachevir or the oil pipelines, but would also be very costly for Aliyev. Would do you guys think about Armenia targeting these if Azerbaijan resumes to hostilities again. Take a look at the image, they are all very close to our borders.

[AbuSindi]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

We're dropping drones like flies. Is this the first or second time we shot it down in Armenia? First from the Nakhichevan side for sure though.

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

We're dropping drones like flies. Is this the first or second time we shot it down in Armenia? First from the Nakhichevan side for sure though.

First in light of the latest events.

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Azeris reporting of a casualty in Karabakh.
I see it posted in a Lebanese news website 2 hours ago.

[Haykakan]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Anti-Armenian Documentary Narrated By Actor Jeremy Irons To Air in Europe

May 12, 2016

A controversial documentary about the Khojaly incident will air on
Euro Channel (June 1). Directed by Lithuanian director Aleksandras
Brokas and narrated by British cinema legend Jeremy Irons, ''Endless
Corridor'' follows Lithuanian journalist Richard Lapaitis on a trip
back to Azerbaijan 20 years after he covered the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. This documentary distorts facts, alters reality, fabricates
evidence and jeopardizes its own status as a documentary. Executive
Producer of the documentary Gerald Rafshoon, was the White House
Communications Director under the Jimmy Carter administration. The
official website of the documentary is endlesscorridor.com.

Shot in English, the documentary was translated into Azerbaijani,
Turkish, French, Italian, German and Arabian on the initiative of
vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva. The film
was also shown on Turkey’s “Kanal 24”, “CNN Turk”, Israel’s “Channel
1” TV channels, and Albania’s National Television.

On February 26, 1992, a series of events took place in Aghdam, which
are now referred to as the “Khojaly massacre” by Azerbaijan. In
reality, the village of Khojaly was one of the Azerbaijani army’s
strongholds in the heart of Nagorno-Karabakh which for many months, as
Human Rights Watch put it, “pounded the capital of Nagorno Karabakh,
Stepanakert, and other Armenian towns and villages with shells and
grenades. The indiscriminate shelling and sniper shooting killed or
maimed hundreds of civilians, destroyed homes, hospitals and other
objects that are not legitimate military targets, and generally
terrorized the civilian population.” In this regard, suppressing the
Azerbaijani army’s fire had become a matter of survival for the people
of Nagorno-Karabakh.

As Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev stated, “And even several
days prior to the attack, the Armenians had been continuously warning
the population about the planned operation through loudspeakers and
suggesting that the civilians abandon the town and escape from the
encirclement through a humanitarian corridor. According to Khojaly
refugees’ own words, they had used this corridor and, indeed, the
Armenian soldiers positioned behind the corridor had not opened fire
on them.”

However, Fatullayev continues, “… part of the Khojaly inhabitants had
been fired upon by our own [Azerbaijani troops]… Whether it was done
intentionally or not is to be determined by investigators … [They were
killed] not by [some] mysterious [shooters], but by provocateurs from
the National Front of Azerbaijan’s battalions … [The corpses] had been
mutilated by our own …”

Ayaz Mutalibov, then the president of Azerbaijan, blamed his political
opponents for the killings in Khojaly. He stated in an interview with
Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazetta in 1992 that “…the corridor, by which
people could escape, had nonetheless been left by the Armenians. So,
why did they have to open fire? Especially in the area around Aghdam,
where there was sufficient force at that time to get help to the
people. As the Khojaly inhabitants, who narrowly escaped, say, it was
all organized in order to have grounds for my resignation. Some forces
functioned for the effort to discredit the president.”

The fact that Khojaly inhabitants fell victim to fierce domestic
political fighting for power in Azerbaijan was confirmed also by then
Chairman of Azerbaijan’s Supreme Council Karayev, his successor
Mamedov, Azerbaijani Human Rights Activist Yunusov, and others.

According to a 1992 report by the Azeri newspaper Bilik-Dunyasi
Agency, Heydar Aliyev, then a presidential hopeful in Azerbaijan,
stated, “…the bloodshed will profit us. We should not interfere in the
course of events.”

Fatullayev, the Chief Editor of the Azerbaijani newspaper Realny
Azerbaijan spent many years in prison for alleged defamation of the
inhabitants of Khojaly. He appealed to the European court of Human
Rights, which ruled that the Azerbaijani government shall immediately
release Fatullayev. He was eventually released in 2011 and shortly
after confirmed to Radio Liberty that he has not changed his views on
the Khojaly events and that he held “Azerbaijani fighters, not
Armenians, responsible for the 1992 killings” of Khojaly inhabitants.

“I call on our partner parliamentarians from different states,
municipal and provincial councils to avoid the pitfalls of Azerbaijani
propaganda,” Zakaryan said in his speech in parliament. “Don’t buy
into false information and fictitious events. Keep clean the
parliamentary agendas and don’t let the Azerbaijani propaganda
penetrate there. If you are looking for those responsible for the
Khojaly events, look for them in Azerbaijan.”

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.horizonweekly.ca_news_details_86136&d=DQIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=LVw5zH6C4LHpVQcGEdVcrQ&m=QvUO3ZzYZ9wIl5zNoeDCptnzI5NUlIbWY1k4XOwVeJo&s=D6C2Xjt3Zc-LQw17aOHo1EZlbAnzDgMcyuOHZZDlis8&e=

[AbuSindi]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Azeris reporting of a casualty in Karabakh.
I see it posted in a Lebanese news website 2 hours ago.

"Azerbaijani serviceman Arabli Rahil Rafig was killed on May 12 as a result of shootout on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenin troops, said the message of the Azerbaijan`s Defense Ministry."

This is from an Azeri source.

The casualty you're talking about is the same or is it from today?