Wednesday, September 10 2014

What are the causes and goals of the Ukrainian crisis,
in your opinion?

 

What we see is a
geo-political collision between Russia and the West, where the West is
resolving the same tasks, nothing extraordinary. And if Moscow refuses the
offered battle, it will get  what it got
in the 90-s. "First, the West and Russia were holding a geo-political
struggle with a help of the political means. The West - through pushing Ukraine
to signing of the Association Agreement and Russia - towards the Customs Union.
The transition of the political confrontation to the force confrontation
happened at the Maydan in Kiev, when Yanukovich said that Ukraine suspended the
preparation work for signing of the Ukraine-the West Association
Agreement.  Of course, the truce reached
on 5 September gives certain hope that the people of Ukraine will finally get
peace. And we have to hope that President Poroshenko has been really striving
to establishment of peace in Ukraine, but does not simply want to gain time for
continuation of the war against the south-east.

 

What threats may Russia face if Ukraine integrates
into Europe?

 

This is a whole
chain: economic, geo-political and military losses. And the appearance of the
NATO Ballistic Missile Defence at the border to Russia is one the links of this
chain. The Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) deployment has a sense only if it
guarantees defence of the West from the nuclear potential of Russia.  The current BMD devices cannot guarantee
that, but they force Russia to spend great funds for upgrading of the nuclear
potential. Much was promised Moscow in the 90-s, even that the united Germany
will not become NATO member. At present not only Germany but also the countries
of the Warsaw Treaty has joined NATO. Not Russia has started the arms race
since the 40-s. And the USSR reached strategic partnership with the USA and
NATO just in the 70-s when the 16 ballistic submarines were created.

 

Was the Armenian President’s participation in the NATO
summit in Wales an attempt to maintain his country’s complementarity policy?

 

Russia has been
participating in all the cooperation formats with NATO, in which Armenia does.
As for Armenian president's participation in the NATO summit in Newport, there
is nothing out of the common.

 

Nevertheless, the Sept 4 meeting of the Armenian and Azeri
presidents with the US Secretary of State was a copy of the Sochi meeting of
the president. In Newport Francois Hollande and Serzh Sargsyan announced their
trilateral meeting with President Aliyev. Can we say that the Ukrainian crisis
has forced the OSCE MG co-chairs to review their work on Nagorno-Karabakh?

 

It is quite
natural that every country of the OSCE Minsk Group and every military and
political bloc have been trying to have more influence at the Karabakh process.
The Karabakh conflict is next to Russia but not the USA. So maximal
participation in the Karabakh process and affecting its settlement is vitally
necessary to Russia. Peace was established only by Russia in 1994 in Karabakh
as well as Dnister, Ossetia and Abkhazia. The meeting in Sochi has practically
restored the ceasefire regime at the border and the number of violations have
sharply reduced.

 

What do you think about the viewpoint that the
July-Aug tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone were triggered by
Russia who is just seeking bigger influence in the region?

 

This is a very
primitive viewpoint. It belongs to either amateurs having no idea of the issue,
or pro-Western forces that seek to create anti-Russia sentiments in Armenia and
Azerbaijan. In the case of Azerbaijan, it is Turkey. In other words, escalation
was an element of fight and creation of anti-Russian sentiments in both the
countries.  Meanwhile, the reasons why
there was upsurge in tensions in July and August were different. I think,
everyone knows that Armenia does not seek to invade Baku, as the goals Armenia
and Artsakh set in 90s have been achieved. The Karabakh was liberated, the
security belt was created, which ensured the military and political balance in
the region that prevents resumption of the war. It is only Azerbaijan that
seeks to resume war. The major task of Azerbaijan, as Aliyev says, is to
exhaust Armenia with the arms race it has launched. Baku seriously relies on
this, but in vain. In Baku they tried to create panic in Armenia to speed up
migration and force the political leadership of Armenia to go on concessions in
the Karabakh peace process. However, Baku has got converse effect, after the
Armed Forces of Armenia, starting from the soldiers up to the defense minister,
acted effectively and competently. In fact, even the Azerbaijani well-trained
subvertionists suffered defeat by our soldiers. At least look at the ratio of
the victims.  Furthermore, the ceasefire
was maintained after the meeting in Sochi, which is another evidence of that. I
do not rule out that Azerbaijan might coordinate its actions with the West to
create another hot spot for Russia.

 

Can the NATO summit in Wales result in some military
or semi-military measures against Russia?

 

In the
geo-political and information war the USA has been increasing the level of fear
of the Europeans of Russia, settling its economic problems and determining the
level of the Russia-Europe commodity circulation. After that, European
countries increase expenditure for defense and in such a way strengthen NATO
and settle geo-political issues. "Therefore, no military sanctions will be
adopted against Russia, but deployment of the new rapid response forces in
Finland and Estonia. Naturally, by means of sanctions they will also try to
fail Russia's economy and reduce its geo-political influence in such a way.

 

The meeting of the Georgian, Turkish and Azeri DMs in
Nakhichevan inspired the Azeris into threats of early collapse of Armenia and
Artsakh?

 

In fact, the
alliance poses no threats or challenges against the Armenian republics. At
least the latest regional processes demonstrate that. Georgia has already
softened its relations with Russia by giving up the former pro-Turkish course
and postponing the implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project, and started
conducting a more balanced policy. 
Certainly, all this stems from Georgia's interests. The meeting in
Nakhichevan was an attempt of Baku and Ankara to neutralize Georgia in
relations with Armenia. But the alliance will not last long. In 2008 Turkey and
Azerbaijan were encouraging Saakashvili's Georgia to unleash war, but when the
war started both Turkey and Azerbaijan washed their hands of it immediately. On
the next day Erdogan arrived in Moscow to visit Putin and Azerbaijan only made
a declarative statement supporting Georgia's actions against South
Ossetia.  

 

Recently General Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan stressed the
need to organize preventive surgical strikes on the Azeri army. He said that if
they are effective the Armenian army will break the blockade and will get to
the Russian border through the north of Azerbaijan. How realistic is this plan?

 

Armenia is
considering any scenario and even infliction of preventive strikes on
Azerbaijan. Commander of the Artsakh Defense Army Movses Hakobyan has also
repeatedly stated that. Consequently, it is clear that in case of war Armenia
and Artsakh will take their steps depending on the situation. Initially, we had
no task to conquer the districts around Karabakh. It was decided after
Azerbaijan had launched a certain strategy. And if today Azerbaijan launches
military actions, we can start advancing northward. We have enough options to
do that. If the Armenian forces manage to do this, Azerbaijan will get rid of
the opportunity to continue the military actions. The current armed forces of
Azerbaijan have numerous weak spots, for instance, the lack of motivation,
especially when the servicemen are fighting to conquer not their land, but
other territory. There is a problem of national minorities, whose rights are
infringed by the Azeris. Azerbaijan has large-scale corruption and a terrible
moral and psychological atmosphere in the army. The Azeri officers are trained
in Turkey, whose approaches and arms are absolutely different. In addition,
Azerbaijan purchases various types of weapons from numerous countries, which
considerably complicates the maintenance, requires various types of ammunition,
personnel training. Azerbaijan has different volley fire systems - Pakistani,
Israeli, Russian, Turkish, etc. This has a negative effect on the army's combat
effectiveness.

 

And what about the problems of our armed forces?

 

The Armenian army
does have problems but they are really trifling if compared with the problems
the Soviet army had. Our army cannot be compared with the armies living in
barracks and keeping their arms in arms rooms. The more armed people a country
has, the more accidents it registers. Our army consists of armed people sitting
in trenches that run for miles very close to the enemy and mine areas. Today our
army is on constant alert. We must keep this in mind. And we must make films
about our soldiers, about our heroes. In other countries they invent heroes,
while in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh you can see heroes at every step. Today
we must actively boost our morale, otherwise, we will lose much more than we
are trying to gain. This is an axiom.