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Radio War Nerd EP #397 — 3rd Nagorno-Karabakh War, feat. Joshua Kucera (Patreon)

Published:
2023-09-22 18:43:26
Edited:
2023-09-22 18:53:18
Imported:
2023-09
Tags:

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Content

Guest: Joshua Kucera, journalist

Recorded: September 21, 2023

We talk to Tbilisi-based journalist Joshua Kucera about this week's Azerbaijani blitzkrieg conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the ethnic-Armenian enclave that broke away after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992-3, but was left vulnerable & doomed after the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. 

*Articles by Joshua Kucera:-"An Armenian Tragedy", Slate, December 4, 2020-"With New Offensive, Azerbaijan Tightens Grip On Nagorno-Karabakh," RFE/RL, Sept 20, 2023-"'Ruzzki not welcome': the Russian exiles getting a hostile reception in Georgia", Guardian, Aug 8, 2023-Follow Josh on Twitter

*Previous RWN episodes on Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh:-RWN EP #29 — Nagorno-Karabakh War -RWN EP #250 — Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, feat. Lika Zakaryan-RWN EP #254 — Autopsy of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

Maps:

*Zangezur Corridor

Total time: 59:59

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio Studios

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

*Buy John Dolan's comic memoir "Pleasant Hell" now available in both audio and ebook format.

Files

Comments

Anatoly Kir

I feel that Russia’s geopolitical credibility would have improved so much more had they effectively supported Armenia in the 2020 War instead of their military adventures in Ukraine. The loss of Artsakh will also be a stain on the diplomatic history of Russia.

Hans Anders

It’s insane. With the Dutch public news agency, an ‘analist’ was unironically and unopposed arguing that it was in Putins interests to have a war in the southern Caucasus, implying that Russia stoked this up.

Lo

Agreed. In the face of Russia ignoring its treaty obligations to an ally, how can anyone expect that it would abide to the terms of any agreement with an enemy?

JoR

I doubt they care lol. Would America pick it's "international credibility" over an oil rich "ally" like Azerbaijan? Why would Russia be different? And I don't want this to sound like gloating, because what's happening to Armenia is reprehensible. But Russia and the US gain very little by sticking with them (from a realist point of view).

Anatoly Kir

Right. I think the lamentation is indeed because Karabakh Armenians are fucked over as a consequence of political realism. Same with Kurds, etc

Marekedo (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 Pashinyan did have options but I believe he made myopic choices. Just because he is not a gangster like Serzh or Kocharyan, that does not make him a visionary. In the days leading up to the surrender Iran offered Armenia a mutual defense pact. Pashinyan essentially gave them the cold shoulder. Armenia is not in a position to snub its only natural allies in the region. Same goes for his behavior towards Russia. You cannot feint like you are going to defect from your only proximate protector. It's like playing chicken with someone who has relatively little to lose compared to you. Sadly, the US diaspora facilitated what proved to be a suicidal attempt toward a non-aligned position. What most diaspora Armenians do not want to hear is that Armenia itself does not have the luxury of being ambiguously aligned. It is not India. Even if Azerbaijan is temporarily useful to Russia, there are still ways of maximizing your utility to a potentially protective patron when your actual viability as a nation is at stake.
2023-09-23 20:55

JoR

Great point. The parallels between the Kurds and Armenians are strong. And both face the same enemy; NATO's lynchpin

a clash of purple

I think there's an argument to be made that, in the long term, it would actually benefit Russia more to stand up for Armenia. I don't know about geopolitical credibility, but earning a reputation as a power who always sticks up for its allies and honors its word probably pays off very well in material terms. Unfortunately for all of us, long-term planning is not something that nation-states do these days.

a clash of purple

I suppose if they *could* somehow get the U.S. to protect them, it would potentially solve all Armenia's problems. The U.S. could get Azerbaijan and Turkey to back off for good, if they wanted. Unfortunately, I don't think it's a particularly smart move; America isn't much better an ally than Russia is, when the shit hits the fan. I think Iran seems to be a more reliable partner, but their actual means of providing aid are so limited... They just don't have a lot of resources to spare.

Marekedo

They had resources to spare for Syria. And in this case they share a border. If there's one country that would actually go to war for Armenia, it's Iran. The Meghri border is an asset for both countries. Iranian officials have indicated they would fight to keep it from being overrun. That could be taken merely as deterrent posturing. But I think it genuinely reflects the Iranian calculus and their anger with Azerbaijan's alliance with Israel. It's not just because they sympathize with Armenians (although generally there are quite good feelings between the two peoples) that they'd be inclined to defend its sovereignty; they feel existentially threatened by any border changes and are encircled. I also don't think entering the conflict would mean a direct conflict with NATO or with Turkey for them in the way that you could argue their entrance into the Syrian war was. The truth is, if push came to shove and Aliyev made a play for Syunik, the only thing the US and the Europeans would offer Armenia would be public statements of concern. And beneath that, Azeri expansion is not against NATO's interests. Pan-Turanism still retains strategic value for the US: it threatens Russia, Iran and China all at once! For Armenia the choice of partners seems clear. But Pashinyan is blinded by pro-western ideology, I fear. Mass entry of Armenian refugees from Karabakh into Armenia could tip the domestic balance against him. The Karabakh war made the careers of Kocharyan and Sargsyan and ended LTP's. Hopefully the same will happen with Pashinyan in time to spare Syunik the unhappy fate of Karabakh.

SB

I don’t understand where this idea that Russia was supposed to defend Artsakh is coming from. Artsakh is recognized by all as a part of Azerbaijan, even by Armenia now. IIRC they didn’t declare independence, nor did anybody recognize it. If we compare Artsakh to Donbass, Donbass bordered its main supporter. Artsakh does not. DNR/LNR declared their independence, then ‘un-declared’ it by signing Minsk accords to stay parts of Ukraine. Artsakh did nothing like that. DNR/LNR didn’t ethnically cleanse their territory. Armenians in 1990-91 did that by massacring and expelling Azeri population. That’s how Artsakh became ‘Azeri-frei’. Emotionally and culturally, most people here sympathize with Armenians. This is understandable. Azeri forces did massacre Armenians in Artsakh in 2020. But the genocide of 1990s has been somehow memory-holed. Azerbaijan taking control over Artsakh was only a question of time, just like Chechnya for Russia, whether we like it or not. The other confusion I see is about the Russian interests in the area. The base in Gyumri is nice to have for them, but it’s hardly strategic, especially with the logistics nightmare. Peacekeepers in Artsakh is 100% liability, no benefit. They will likely assist with evacuation of, allegedly, 120K of Armenians to the motherland. But after that, there will be little point for them to stay there. I’d argue that Russian presence in Gyumri is much more vital for Armenia that has no friends in the area and bitter enemies of Azerbaijan and Turkey. That’s why it’s so puzzling and stupid for them to alienate Russia and to some degree Iran, the only two powers that could offer military assistance to them. I suspect the factor of their diaspora is playing a major role in their psyche. Many of Armenians see themselves as Kardashians, Saroyans, and Aznavours that will be supported by the West against the Turks (they call Azeris Turks too). Of course, they won’t be, as 2020 and now 2023 clearly showed. It’s interesting that The Duran guys had a very similar analysis in their last video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAuiQsfrb6w. 14 minutes very worth watching.

SB

Another strange statement I hear is that Russia needs Azerbaijan because of their oil and gas. What’s the logic of it? If anything, Azerbaijan is a competitor. Why help them? It would be more logical to work against Azerbaijan to undermine the competitor, not help it, wouldn’t it? EU is a very different case. Azerbaijan is an alternative, albeit limited, to Russian oil and gas. So, selling out Armenians for that makes practical sense for them.

JoR

"genocide of 1990s"? Can't take any of what you wrote seriously by using the "G" word in relation to the Artskah War

SB

Khojaly was just one of the massacres - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre >The Khojaly massacre was the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992.[3][6][7][5][8] The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.[9] Khojaly was an Azerbaijani-populated town of some 6,300 people in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan SSR, also housing the region's only airport in 1992.[10] The town was subject to daily shelling and total blockade by Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Without supply of electricity, gas, or water, it was defended by the local forces consisting of about 160 lightly armed men. The Armenian forces, along with some troops of the 366th CIS regiment, launched an offensive in early 1992, forcing almost the entire Azerbaijani population of the enclave to flee, and committing "unconscionable acts of violence against civilians" as they fled.[1] The massacre was one of the turning points during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The death toll given by the Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children.[4] According to Human Rights Watch, at least 200 Azerbaijanis were killed during the massacre, though as many as 500–1,000 may have died.[2][11][12] This number includes combatants and those who died of cold. [13] Of course, it doesn't justify in any way atrocities by Azeris. But the inconvenient fact is that Armenians massacred and drove away pretty much all of the Azerbaijan population of Artsakh in the 90s. The violence started in 1988 with anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and Baku, but at that time Soviet leadership was still able to send military to stop it. Maybe calling it genocide is indeed taking it too far, although Azeris do call it that. But it's impossible to argue with that Artsakh was turned into Armenian-only through massacres and ethnic cleansing in early 1990s.

SB

@Lo >In the face of Russia ignoring its treaty obligations to an ally What obligation? Artsakh is not subject of any treaty. It's a breakaway region that everyone recognizes as part of Azerbaijan. An attack on Armenia proper would be another story, and there were some cross-border incursions by Azeris. But they were relatively minor.

SB

>The U.S. could get Azerbaijan and Turkey to back off for good, if they wanted. How exactly would US do that? So far, they failed to rein in Turkey with regards to Siria and Russia. For Azerbaijan, Turkey is a much more reliable partner than the US.

M

There has been a war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis over who is the bigger victim. Khojaly is instrumentalized by Azeri society as a genocide. The intention behind it is to draw equivalence to the Armenian Genocide, which coincidentally Azerbaijan denies. It’s not uncommon to see Azerbaijani state officials now push the new line that actually during the Armenian Genocide, it wasn’t a genocide against Armenians, but rather Turks who were the victims of genocide by the Armenians. Yes, ridiculous, but when the Aliyev regime maintains a tight grip over media, they can just pump ridiculous propaganda like this into to minds of Azerbaijanis. And Khojaly as a result has been weaponized as not just a tool for denial of Armenian suffering, but also a slick attempt to create a monopoly of suffering for Azerbaijanis around the events of the first war. However, Armenians were the targets of terrible pogroms in Azerbaijan. Sumgait, Kirovobad, Baku, among others. There were reports of Armenian women being raped in their own homes and left for dead, Armenians being hacked to death in the streets, even the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has recounted the horror publicly in interviews as he was forced to flee Baku as an Armenian Jew. The 250,000-300,000 Armenian population of Baku was then reduced to practically 0 in a short amount of time. However, these are events that have been memory-holed by the Aliyev regime and they are never talked about, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the average Azeri believes they never happened. Historical revisionism plays a big part in this amnesia. After the Baku pogrom against Armenians started, the Soviets came to restore order. Violence ensued and Azerbaijani rioters were killed. These armenophobic extremists have now been commemorated in Azerbaijan as “Black January”. Azerbaijan advertises it to the international public as a day of Azerbaijani patriots’ defiant uprising against the USSR. In reality, it is a commemoration for Azerbaijani extremists who were involved in bloody pogroms against the Armenians and whose lives were taken when the Soviets came to crack down on the inter-ethnic violence. Since then, leaders from around the world unwittingly visit the Black January memorial not knowing the full extent of the history, and are fooled into just thinking it is a commemoration of lives lost due to violence committed by the Soviets. This then creates the impression of legitimacy for this historical revisionism among Azeri society. I’m glad John and Mark brought up Ramil Safarov. Azeris play down his role in their society, but online it’s a different story.

Christopher Price

Russia has been using Azerbaijan to "launder" their gas exports to embargoing countries. Then there's also the long history of oil producing nations choosing collusion over competition.

Aditya V

The guest totally skipped the ancient hold of Armenians over those lands and decided that Azeris were simply taking back the land