Makaleler

Baku is shaking the situation in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh, judging by the Aliyev's statements and actions. The information attack was launched from two directions - Azerbaijani reproaches against the Russian Ministry of Defense and the command of the contingent about the use of fictional Armenian toponyms, as well as accusations of Armenia in mining territories in the region.

On November 27, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan repeated the call to Russian colleagues to use a phrase "Karabakh economic region" instead of the toponym "Nagorno-Karabakh". Baku is not embarrassed that in the tripartite statement of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan dated November 9, 2020, which bears the signature of President Ilham Aliyev, Nagorno-Karabakh is mentioned four times.

Last week, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation did not refresh this fact in the memory of Baku critics, but only diplomatically pointed out that the command of the contingent, when compiling its information bulletins and in daily peacekeeping activities in the region, uses maps of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces with toponyms reflected in them.

As for the mine impulse of Baku, Yerevan already has to repel the attacks of its neighbors. This mission is entrusted to the Armenian ambassador-at-large Edmon Marukyan.

Azerbaijan is trying to establish control over the Lachin corridor, along which Russian peacekeepers are deployed.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan has indicated that since August, mines produced in Armenia in 2021 have been found on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in the Kalbajar and Lachin regions. It was also claimed that these mines indicate that Armenia "used the Lachin corridor for illegal military operations".

"It is done to try to establish control over the Lachin corridor, and now they are preparing this so-called "sauce". Now we are informing all our international partners that these mines were removed from the indicated places, from the occupied territories of the Republic of Armenia, " Marukyan claims.

Jeyhun Shadlinsky, deputy head of the State Security Service (SSS) of Azerbaijan, made similar accusations against Yerevan. According to him, Baku has facts of "transportation of weapons to the territory of deployment of Russian peacekeepers", as well as "creation of conditions for military provocations".

"If they took control of this area in August, why were the mines discovered only in November?" - Marukyan asks. Azerbaijan removed the anti-personnel mines laid by the Republic of Armenia from its sovereign territory, from about 140 km of the occupied territory – Jermuk, Sotk, Khoznavar. Baku moved them to the indicated height, which in their language is called Sarybaba. There they they want to show that, the Lachin corridor is used to transport ammunition.

By all indications, Baku is methodically heating up the situation in the region. Whether the ground is being prepared for new attacks in the zone of responsibility of the contingent with the advancement of Azerbaijani positions and the capture of new heights on the ground, as was the case in August, it is still difficult to say. But the frontal information attack, constant skirmishes on the border with Armenia and the growing flow of nervous shouts at Russian peacekeepers add up to one general line of the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan. It is against extending the Russian peacekeeping mission for another five years, until 2030.