The “strategic” relationship with Russia represents more danger than promising security for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh
A few days ago, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan gave an interview to “Liberty” radio station and voiced remarkable estimates. He noted that if the CSTO member countries want to have not a formal but an influential structure, then they must be guided by the agreement of the organization. Sh. Kocharyan is sure that CSTO should have responded a year ago to a downing of the Armenian helicopter in Karabakh in the same way as it responded to the downing of the Russian aircraft by the Turkish forces. Then, speaking of the tension in Russian-Turkish relations, Shavarsh Kocharyan expressed an opinion that it affects Armenia negatively.
Thus, Yerevan officially registers the created dangerous atmosphere in which our state appeared. Formulating in non-diplomatic language, it can be stated that the “strategic” relationship with Russia, in this phase, represent more danger in several fields rather than ensure the security of Armenia and Artsakh. The assembly of 13 helicopters acquired in the end of 2015 is over at Russia’s “Erebuni” aviation military base in Armenia. As reported by the press service of the Southern Military District of Russia’s armed forces, the crew carried out the first round flight consisted of two helicopters in high mountainous conditions at low-temperature regimes last year.
The other helicopters’ experimental flights are scheduled for February at the low limit 100 meters to the maximum 3500 meters above the sea level. After the test flights, the crews of Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters will carry out combat training drills at the mountainous area during the day and night hours. The Russian Defense Ministry reported that during this year, the Russian military base deployed at the “Erebuni” airport in Yerevan will be supplemented with new combat aircraft. In December, the Russian military base deployed in Armenia was supplemented with dozens of new combat and transport helicopters, in early this year Russia announced that in the second half of the year 2016, a new batch of modern MiG-29 fighter aircraft, as well as one transport helicopters will arrive at the military base.
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Military experts believe that the helicopters are the first step, there will be also a new air defense system and Russia will bring “Iskander”s to Armenia, recently such opinion was expressed by the head of the Caucasus Department of the CIS Institute, Vladimir Evseev. In the beginning of this year, it became known that the Russian military base deployed in Gyumri was supplemented with “Takhion” new type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), reported the press service of the Southern Military District of Russia’s armed forces. The soldiers will pass one-month exercises to manage the unmanned aerial vehicles in “Kamkhud” and “Alagyaz” high mountainous military colleges. In late December, Defense Ministers of Armenia and Russia, Sergei Shoigu and Seyran Ohanyan, signed an agreement in Moscow on creating a united air defense regional system in the Caucasus region of Collective Security. That day, Ohanyan and Shoigu signed also the 2016 cooperation program between the ministries headed by them.
Earlier, in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to sign an agreement with Armenia on creating a joint air defense system. Thus, the Russian Defense Ministry clearly states that it is reinforcing its aviation group deployed in “Erebuni” airport in Yerevan. On the other hand, Russia continues to supply military equipment to Azerbaijan. Russian media reported that the supply of “BMP-3” combat armored vehicle to Azerbaijan will be completed next year. In 2010, Azerbaijan and Russia agreed on the supply of a large quantity of weapons and equipment. “Rosoboronexport” reported that the supply is planned to complete in 2017. According to the mass media reports, in addition to the “BMP-3”, Russia will supply T-90C type of tank, self-propelled howitzers, rocket launchers, etc. to Azerbaijan.
Along with the tanks, Azerbaijan will get repair and engineering machinery. This package costs approximately one billion dollars. How long the Russia-Turkey tensions will last, no one can predict. It is unlikely that Russia would come out to a military confrontation with Turkey, in the territory of this country, but the actions against Turkey by Russia outside Turkey cannot be ruled out. And here is a question, how and by whom …
The degree of possible threats in the South Caucasus, as seen, have been started and already responded by Washington. Countering the possible unpredictable actions by Russia seems to become an issue on agenda. Recently, a noteworthy announcement was voiced by the commander of NATO forces, the US General of Air Force, Philippe Breedlove, who called upon to send more American forces to Europe and raise their level of preparedness “so that they would be endowed with leading capabilities for the implementation of the NATO Treaty (Article 5)” under Russia’s active conditions. His explanation on this matter was quite remarkable, “If we observe the actions of Russia starting from 2008 in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Crimea, Donbas and now also in Syria, we will see that the majority calls Russia a revanchist that has returned to the use of military force as an instrument of national power to achieve its goals.”
Later on, Breedlove noted that he cannot say what Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intends to do with its modernized and trained armed forces, “Many people are asking me, “What does Putin think about?” Or, “How do you think what he is thinking about.” I’m not sure that I know what he is thinking about but I can look at what he’s doing and derive from that what we should be thinking about on our side,” reported the “Voice of America”. Mentioning the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the context of Russia’s revanchist aspirations, perhaps, is the first response from Washington at the level of such top official.
This means that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing the United States simply does not trust the other co-chair Russia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process as a mediator of peace. The Karabakh problems, thus, in the domain of Russia-Turkey, Russia-Azerbaijan, and Russia-the United States, can become a new “bargaining chip”. Keeping the contact line in tension by Azerbaijani and the continual policy of entering the negotiation process into a deadlock provides additional leverage for Russia to once again establish itself in the South Caucasus and to further maintain its influence on the South Caucasus states.
Emma GABRIELYAN,
“Aravot” daily
