If Russia Progresses with its Current Policy, it’ll be “Clinical Death” for CSTO and Other Unions: Sergey Minasyan
“Nobody may say whether we have weeks or a few years until resumption of military operations,” Sergey Minasyan, Deputy Director of the Caucasus Institute, told at a discussion on “Lessons from Karabakh four-day war.” He stated that an attempt should be made to separate military and political results, as well as integration of regional actors and its implications.
According to him, resumption of military operations and acquisition of a few meters is quite a beneficial factor for Ilham Aliyev, who enjoys support inside Azerbaijan on national level. Although, according to Minasyan, it’s also hard to say how internal support will last, as, along with it, it’s worth mentioning that militarily problems emerged for Azerbaijan, as they had a situation, when after the 1994 military operations, large amount of weaponry has been applied, due to which the Azerbaijani side succeeded to take a few meters with heavy losses, which creates problems. In Minasyan’s opinion, factors, which were formerly obvious, that Azerbaijan, as a result of a race throughout decades, has some privilege and attempted to use it just from the very start, which was obvious.
“Thus, the major lesson we got, is the following: we should try to seriously review our defensive and foreign policy systems in a short-term perspective, nobody has replied yet, whether we have weeks, or a few years until resumption of military operations. Aliyev has a serious social demand to go on with his militant rhetoric,” Sergey Minasyan said. Speaking of external actors, Minasyan told, adverse to expectations available in Armenia and in the region, as well as beyond it—among the West and Russia, we’ll face a situation which is becoming traditional for the post-Soviet space.
“In case of any military confrontation Russia is being engaged in acquisition and maintenance of ceasefire regime, due to which it increases its influence on all sides. Despite the fact that some of them enjoy this or no, we’ll face a situation, when Armenia’s dependency from Russia will intensify, however, it’ll intensify in case of Azerbaijan as well, we’ll see that other external actors will face serious problems in case of engagement with the conflict, this refers Turkey and Western actors, which creates a new situation,” Minasyan said. Touching upon Armenia-Russia relations, Sergey Minasyan said, it’s natural, both Yerevan and Moscow should get lessons from the occurrences, as it was a cold shower for Russia.
“They at least understand in Russia, if Armenia won’t be able to provide NK security and development, it’ll deprive Armenia-Russia military-political relations from their main sense, they should clearly understand that in Russia. They should also realize that by losing Armenia, they’ll lose Azerbaijan as well, just the following day. Azerbaijan will try to “escape from Russia” just from the very first second,” Sergey Minasyan said. In his conviction, if Russia attempts to continue current policy, it’ll be “clinical death” both for CSTO format and integration ambitions.
By Araks Martirosyan
