The Armenian government urged the peacekeepers to step in to protect Karabakh’s population hours after the start of the Azerbaijani assault. Russian officials ruled out such intervention, leading Yerevan to accuse Moscow of not honoring its obligations spelled out in a 2020 truce accord brokered by it.
“The peacekeepers only had the right to monitor the ceasefire regime,” Putin countered during an annual meeting of Russia’s Valdai Discussion Club.
He said that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian sharply downgraded the status of the Russian peacekeeping contingent when he recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan during Armenian-Azerbaijani summits organized by the European Union in October 2022 and May 2023. Pashinian’s moves legitimized Baku’s military action that led to the mass exodus of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population, he said.
“I learned about Armenia's recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan from the press, they did not inform us separately,” Putin added in another stern rebuke of the Armenian leader.
Other Russian officials as well as the Foreign Ministry in Moscow similarly pointed to Pashinian’s decision, denounced by the Armenian opposition, in the months leading up to the Azerbaijani takeover. They used it to try to justify the peacekeepers’ failure to reopen traffic through the Lachin corridor blocked by Azerbaijan last December.
Many in Armenia feel that the peacekeepers could have also prevented Azerbaijan from arresting about a dozen current and former leaders of Karabakh, who are now facing long prison sentences in Baku. The authorities in Stepanakert have long been known for their pro-Russian views.
Putin expressed hope that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will show clemency for the jailed Karabakh Armenian leaders “now that all territorial issues for Azerbaijan have been resolved.” But in another jibe at Pashinian, he suggested that the Armenian authorities “don’t quite want to see them in Yerevan.”