I have always said that I do not see any prerequisites for signing a peace treaty [with Azerbaijan] in the near future. Today I already have a slightly different opinion. Today I believe that there are prerequisites, but I cannot say anything about the timeframe. Hovik Aghazaryan, an MP from the ruling majority Civil Contract Faction of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, told this to reporters at the NA Thursday, and added that today the aforementioned prerequisites are more solid than a year ago. And to the question as to what the basis is for such a conclusion, Aghazaryan responded: “First, we have started a bilateral dialogue with each other; we don’t hesitate. Second, there is no reason to go to war. True, Azerbaijan and Turkey do not give up their main ambitions which they were pursuing regarding the ‘Zangezur corridor’ and, in general, the existence of Armenia. But in order for you to go to war with your neighbor or anyone else, you must be stronger than it with the combination of two factors. One is the military factor, the other is the political component. That is, you have to present to the world why you are doing that thing. With the combination of these two factors, we [i.e. Armenia] are not far behind Azerbaijan. This is the most important factor in establishing peace. Otherwise, even if we sign the paper [i.e. the peace treaty], we can sign [it] today, carry out an act of war tomorrow. “In that sense, now such a situation has been created that whether we like it or not, we have to live in peace. But I cannot say when it will happen; it may take years because that document is not beneficial to Azerbaijan. What does it give to Azerbaijan? It gives nothing. And without that agreement, you might see something has changed in the world, Azerbaijan will try under some pretext to solve the problem that it cannot solve now, solve [it] then together with Turkey.”
Portraits of Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin and commander Dmitry Utkin are seen at a makeshift memorial in front of the PMC Wagner office in Novosibirsk, on August 24, 2023 [Vladimir Nikolayev/AFP]
Asked about the future of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had just carried out a mutiny in Russia, CIA Director William Burns warned that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold”. On August 23, exactly two months after his short-lived revolt, a private jet crashed in Russia, with Prigozhin reportedly on board.
Some have already credited Burns with predicting Prigozhin’s demise, but for many Russia observers, it hardly came as a surprise. Putin has a long history of taking out those he perceives as traitors.
Throughout his political career, he has made clear that he values loyalty above all else. In the 1990s, when he was deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg and his then-boss Mayor Anatoly Sobchak lost a re-election bid, he supposedly turned down an offer to work for Sobchak’s rival by stating: “It’s better to be hanged for loyalty than be rewarded for betrayal.” In a 2016 interview, he was asked what “cannot be forgiven”; his answer was immediate: “treason”.
Since he took power in 2000, many who have fallen afoul of him have mysteriously died: from General Alexander Lebed, a widely popular governor who was seen as a possible challenger to Putin, who died in a 2002 helicopter crash, to oligarch Boris Berezovsky who funded opposition efforts after going into exile in London, where he died in suspicious circumstances in 2013.
The targeting of former spies Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 highlighted how Putin is even willing to evoke international ire to enact revenge. One of the men suspected of Litvinenko’s murder by the British authorities was granted state honours for his “services to the motherland”.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Putin launched in February 2022 has prompted more score-settling. There has been a string of suspicious deaths of former Russian officials and business people over the past year and a half, not just in Russia but also abroad. From people falling from windows and ships to whole families being killed – the morbid trail of mysterious high-profile people found dead has even become the subject of a podcast.
Prigozhin’s mutiny not only put the crosshairs on his back but also triggered a wave of dismissals of military officials. General Sergei Surovikin, who Prigozhin had publicly praised in contrast to other Russian commanders and defence officials, disappeared after the mutiny. On the morning of August 23, reports surfaced of his official dismissal as head of the air force.
Another sacked general, Ivan Popov, also has not been seen since an audio recording of him criticising the military was shared publicly by a Russian legislator.
While what happened with the private jet reportedly carrying Prigozhin is still unclear – and we may never know the truth – what is apparent is that the Kremlin does not mind the public talking about it.
While Russian state media and institutions have often shied away from reporting on suspicious deaths and assassinations, the plane crash that reportedly killed Prigozhin was well covered. The Russian aviation authorities quickly published the list of passengers on the jet, while onlookers were allowed close to the crash site.
The Kremlin clearly is trying to send a message to the rest of the Russian elite, which over the past year and a half has seen tensions and even open dissent over the war in Ukraine. Instilling fear is Putin’s way of ensuring internal cohesion and obedience, but it can go only that far.
Discontent within the ranks of the army is rising and Prigozhin’s killing is unlikely to suppress that. The economic elite is also unhappy as Western sanctions are biting and there seems to be no end in sight for the war in Ukraine. Capital flight has forced the Kremlin to resort to heavy-handed measures to rein in Russian oligarchs, confiscating some of their property and pressuring them to transfer their wealth back into the country.
Most recently, the plunge of the rouble has forced the Russian government to undertake unpopular economic measures, increasing the interest rate and soft capital controls. It has asked exporters to sell foreign currency to support the rouble, and the Kremlin has indicated that it would go after those seen as non-compliant.
The economic crisis is affecting not only Russia’s rich, but also the middle class and poor. The support of mobilised troops and their families is draining billions from the state coffers, while social support measures extended for the poor temporarily may not be sustained for long.
Part of Putin’s bargain with the Russian population was to provide security, stability and a minimum level of socioeconomic comfort. All of these are now quickly evaporating.
The bloody score-settling and growing feeling of insecurity brought about by constant Ukrainian drone strikes and sabotage operations on Russian territory are bringing back bad memories of the chaotic 1990s, when organised crime and terror attacks terrified ordinary Russians.
Putin’s bargain is breaking down. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a major miscalculation. Putin may be blind to this reality, but many around him are not. Prigozhin’s fate reveals how the war he unleashed can turn the closest of allies into the deadliest of enemies.
Armenian police detained more than a dozen protesters outside a government building in Yerevan on August 8 after they demanded authorities take steps to unblock the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking the ethnic Armenian-populated Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. The Interior Ministry said 14 people were detained for failing to comply with police orders but said they would be released soon.
Armenian Protesters Demanding Government Take Steps To Unblock Lachin Corridor Arrested
Armenian police on August 8 detained more than a dozen protesters outside a government building in Yerevan after they demanded the authorities take steps to unblock the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking the Armenian-populated Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
The Interior Ministry said 14 people were detained for failing to comply with police orders but said they would be released soon.
The protesters arrived at a government building in the morning and demanded authorities open the corridor, saying that if the government didn’t do it, they wanted to be armed so that they could open it themselves.
Yerevan and international aid groups have warned that a dire humanitarian situation has been unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh since convoys of food and medicine have been blocked from reaching the region.
The protesters, who said they were members of a military unit, said they intended to travel by bus to Kornidzor, a village on the border with Azerbaijan where trucks containing aid have been standing.
He claimed that his forces had taken control of the city’s military facilities, including the airfield, as military tanks rolled through the streets of Rostov-on-Don, according to videos posted online.
The mercenary leader said his troops faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints.
His forces “aren’t fighting against children,” he said.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, records a video addressing the rebellion in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on June 24, 2023.
“Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance…” he said in a recording of one of his notorious tirades.
“There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country,” he said, promising to tackle any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner’s way.
“We will consider anyone who tries to resist a threat and quickly destroy them,” he said.
Putin has been made aware of the situation and “all the necessary measures were being taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Putin called the situation a “stab in the back” during his five-minute address to the nation on Saturday.
“Actions that divide our unity are in essence defeatism before one’s own people,” Putin said. “This is a stab in the back of our country and our people.”
“This is a criminal adventuristic campaign. It is equivalent to armed mutiny. Russia will defend itself.”
Video showed tanks, allegedly belonging to Wagner, roll into Rostov-on-Don, a city of about 1.1 million people about 1,000 miles from Moscow,with its guns pointed at the Russian Southern Military Headquarters.
Armed soldiers can be seen with their guns drawn surrounding and entering the vitally important military building, another clip shows.
Prigozhin posted his own video demanding Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the General Staff, come meet him at the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don — and threatening to storm Moscow if they didn’t.
Service members stand outside the Southern Military District headquarters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on June 24, 2023.Fighters of Wagner private mercenary group are deployed in a street near the headquarters of the Southern Military District in the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on June 24, 2023.
“We have arrived here, we want to receive the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” he said in the video shared by his press service. “Unless they come, we’ll be here — we’ll blockade the city of Rostov and head for Moscow.”
Earlier, footagecirculating online showed large trucks blocking highways leading to Rostov-on-Don. Convoys of National Guard trucks were seen on a road outside, while tanks were driving down city streets.
The area’s governor urged residents to remain calm and in their homes.
“The law enforcement authorities are doing everything necessary to assure the safety of the region’s residents,” Rostov Gov. Vasily Golubev said on Telegram at around 4 a.m. local time, according to the New York Times.
Wagner fighters stand outside the Southern Military District building on June 24, 2023.Wagner fighters are seen aiming their rifles toward the Southern Military District headquarters on June 24, 2023.
“I’m asking everyone to stay calm and not leave their home without necessity.”
Prigozhin claimed Gerasimov ordered warplanes to attack Wagner’s convoys, which were driving alongside ordinary vehicles.
He also said that his forces shot down a Russian military helicopter that fired on a civilian convoy, but that has not been confirmed.
An armored tank is seen on a street of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Friday after the Wagner Group’s leader was accused of trying to stage a coup.
Prigozhin posted a series of video and audio recordings online in which he claimed Shoigu and Gerasimov launched a rocket, helicopter and artillery attack against his camp, killing 2,000 soldiers who were fighting on Russia’s behalf in its war against Ukraine.
Earlier on Friday, he accused Shoigu of leading Russia into war under false pretenses as the months-long war of words between the two has led to open conflict.
This war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine. The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory,” he said, according to the New York Times report.
A Wagner tank situated outside the Southern Military District headquarters on June 24, 2023.Wagner fighters take position behind an armored vehicle outside the Southern Military District headquarters on June 24, 2023.
Prigozhin said his mercenaries would now punish Shoigu in an armed rebellion and urged the army not to offer resistance.
“The evil that the military leadership of the country brings forward must be stopped. They have forgotten the word ‘justice,’ and we will return it,” Prigozhin said in an audio recording posted on Wagner’s social media Friday, according to the Journal.
“Anyone attempting resistance will be considered a threat and immediately destroyed. This includes all the checkpoints on our path and any aircraft above our heads.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin has been feuding with Russian military brass for months before Friday’s escalation.This screen grab from video provided by Ostorozhno Novosti shows a military vehicle on Saturday morning in Moscow.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow has denied his claims about the attack. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which is part of the Federal Security Services, or FSB, has opened a criminal investigation into Prigozhin on charges of inciting an armed rebellion, state media reported.
Russian generals accused the outspoken Prigozhin of attempting to mount an armed coup against Putin, according to the Times.
“This is not a military coup, but a march of justice,” Prigozhin declared.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, escorted by a group of officers, greets a military medic as he inspects Russian troops in Ukraine.
Mick Mulroy, a retired C.I.A. officer and former Pentagon official, told The Times that Prigozhin, if successful, may force Putin to redirect the military from Ukraine — where Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive — to back home.
“Even if this attempted coup fails, it emphatically makes the point that those closest to this war know it was a terrible mistake,” Mulroy told the paper.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, speaks with Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov, left, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Putin has been made aware of the situation with Wagner, state media said.
Russia’s Deputy Commander of Russian joint forces, Sergey Surovikin, called on Wagner to stop and resolve the situation peacefully.
“I urge you to stop. The enemy is waiting for our internal political situation to escalate. We must not play in the enemy’s favor in this difficult time,” he said, according to Tass.
“We have together come a difficult way, we were fighting together, risking, suffering casualties, we were winning together. We are of [the] same blood, we are fighters,” he added.
A tank near a mall in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, where Prigozhin claimed that Shoigu went to Russian military headquarters personally to direct the strike on Wagner and then “cowardly” fled.
The FSB urged Wagner’s soldiers to arrest Prigozhin on mutiny charges and refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders.” It called his statements a “stab in the back to Russian troops” and said they amounted to fomenting an armed conflict in Russia.
Russia’s chief prosecutor said the criminal investigation was justified and that an armed rebellion charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Since Russia launched its war in Ukraine 16 months ago, Wagner’s forces have been among the most successful even as Russia’s invasion has largely been stalled by Ukraine’s defense forces, backed by Western allies.
Yevgeny Prigozhin holding a Russian national flag in front of his soldiers in Bakhmut, Ukraine, which they successfully captured last year.
Wagner troops successfully took the city of Bakhmut, where some of the most grueling and bloodiest fighting of the war took place. It was the only advance made by Russia last year.
Its forces are largely made of convicts Prigozhin recruited from Russian prisons, with the promise of a pardon in exchange for six months of service on the Ukrainian front lines.
Roughly 10,000 Wagner troops were killed during the battle for Bakhmut — half of all the Russian soldiers killed since December.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group military company members wave a Russian national and Wagner flag atop a damaged building in Bakhmut.
Prigozhin has been critical of Russia’s military brass since it was hired to fight, accusing leaders of incompetence and of starving his troops of weapons and ammunition.
His feud with Shoigu dates back years.
His words on Friday, however, were a direct challenge.
The Russian Defense Ministry required all military contractors to sign contracts with it before July 1, but Prigozhin refused to comply.
A police car is seen behind a barrier on the Red Square in central Moscow on Saturday morning.
Prigozhin said in a statement Friday he was willing to find a compromise with the Defense Ministry, but “they have treacherously cheated us.”
“Today they carried out a rocket strike on our rear camps, and a huge number of our comrades got killed,” he said.
Prigozhin claimed that Shoigu went to the Russian military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don personally to direct the strike on Wagner and then “cowardly” fled.
“This scum will be stopped,” he said, in reference to Shoigu.
Russia sent armored vehicles into the streets of Moscow and a city near Ukraine. Russia’s main security agency urged Wagner mercenaries to detain their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, after he accused Russian forces of attacking them.
An image released by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s press service that it said showed him with Wagner fighters in Bakhmut, Ukraine, last month.Credit…Concord Press Service, via Reuters
A Russian mercenary leader derides the invasion as a ‘racket’ to enrich the country’s elite.
Russian generals late on Friday accused Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the outspoken mercenary tycoon, of trying to mount a coup against President Vladimir V. Putin, as the Russian authorities opened an investigation into Mr. Prigozhin for “organizing an armed rebellion.”
The long-running feud between Mr. Prigozhin and the Russian military over the war in Ukraine has now escalated into an open confrontation, setting up the biggest challenge to Mr. Putin’s authority since he launched his invasion of Ukraine 16 months ago.
Videos circulating widely on social media showed that military and national guard armored vehicles had been deployed in Moscow and the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, near the front line in Ukraine where Mr. Prigozhin’s fighters had been operating.
Armored vehicles on a street of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Friday.Credit…Reuters
Mr. Prigozhin on Friday accused the Russian military of attacking his Wagner mercenary forces and, in a series of recordings posted to social media, pledged that his fighters would retaliate. Russian authorities, in turn, accused Mr. Prigozhin — whose broadsides against the Russian Defense Ministry had been tolerated by Mr. Putin for months — of trying to foment a revolt.
“This is a stab in the back of the country and the president,” Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, the deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency, said in a video appeal to Mr. Prigozhin’s fighters, urging them to call off any rebellion. “This is a coup.”
Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary force has proved pivotal to the Russian war effort in Ukraine, but in recent months, he repeatedly chastised Russia’s top brass for alleged corruption and indifference to regular soldiers’ lives. On Friday night, he took his accusations to a new level, claiming that the Russian military had attacked Wagner encampments, killing “a huge number of fighters.”
“The evil borne by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” Mr. Prigozhin (pronounced pree-GOH-zhin) said in one of a series of voice recordings posted to the Telegram social network after 9 p.m. Moscow time.
Minutes later, he suggested that his Wagner mercenary force was prepared to go on the offensive against Russia’s own Defense Ministry, saying, “There’s 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country.”
He denied that the actions were a “military coup.”
“This is a march for justice,” he said in another audio message on Telegram. “Our actions aren’t interfering with the troops in any way.”
Just past midnight Moscow time, Russia’s prosecutor general announced that Mr. Prigozhin was being investigated “on suspicion of organizing an armed rebellion” and would face as much as 20 years in prison if prosecuted.
The Wagner leader then defiantly took to Telegram again, saying his fighters were approaching the city of Rostov-on-Don and adding: “We are going farther. We will go to the end.”
Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts remained unclear, and there was no immediate confirmation that his forces were actually approaching the city.
While President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had yet to comment as of Friday night, one of his advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, warned on Twitter that “tumultuous times are coming” for Russia.
White House officials said they were following the events, but would not say much more. “We are monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments,” said Adam Hodge, a National Security Council spokesman.
Mr. Prigozhin and President Vladimir Putin at one of Mr. Prigozhin’s factories in St. Petersburg in 2010. Mr. Prigozhin accused the Russian military of attacking his forces, vowed to retaliate, on Friday.Credit…Kremlin, via Associated Press
Mr. Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who leveraged his personal connections with Mr. Putin into lucrative government contracts, gained international prominence after his online “troll factory” interfered in the 2016 American presidential election — and after his Wagner fighters were deployed in Syria and across Africa as a shadow force believed to be fighting for Kremlin interests.
For months the Russian war effort has been hampered by the bitter feud between Mr. Prigozhin and top military leaders, whom he has accused in scathing terms of incompetence in conducting the war. He has asserted that Russia’s top brass have refused to provide Wagner forces with needed ammunition even as they fought alongside the Russian military for control of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
But never before had Mr. Prigozhin accused Russia’s military leaders of attacking his forces, nor asserted in such stark terms that the Kremlin’s stated justification for the war was nonsense.
In a 30-minute video released on Friday, Mr. Prigozhin had described his country’s invasion of Ukraine as a “racket” perpetrated by a corrupt elite chasing money and glory without concern for Russian lives.
He also accused the Russian minister of defense, Sergei K. Shoigu, of orchestrating a deadly attack with missiles and helicopters on camps to the rear of the Russian lines in Ukraine, where his soldiers of fortune were bivouacked. And he accused Mr. Shoigu of overseeing the strikes himself from the town of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, near Ukraine.
The mercenary leader’s claims could not be immediately verified. The Russian defense ministry denied the allegations, saying in a statement that the messages Mr. Prigozhin had posted about supposed strikes on Wagner camps “do not correspond to reality.”
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that Mr. Putin was “aware of all events around Prigozhin,” according to Interfax, a Russian news agency.
Mr. Prigozhin’s accusations created a ripple effect among Russian pro-war activists, who fear that an open conflict between the army and Wagner forces could threaten the Russian front lines during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. In Ukraine, some viewed his statements as more evidence of internal divisions within the Russian war effort.
In an earlier videotaped speech, Mr. Prigozhin did not explicitly impugn Mr. Putin, instead casting him as a leader being misled by his officials. But in dismissing the Kremlin’s narrative that the invasion was a necessity for the Russian nation, Mr. Prigozhin went further than anyone in Russia’s security establishment in publicly challenging the wisdom of the war.
“The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin said, referring to Mr. Putin’s initial justifications for the war. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”
Friday’s diatribes deepened the enigma of Mr. Prigozhin’s ambiguous role in Mr. Putin’s system. His Wagner troops, composed of veteran fighters as well as thousands of convicts whom Mr. Prigozhin personally recruited from Russian prisons, proved key in capturing the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in May after a monthslong battle.
But, during the battle for Bakhmut, Mr. Prigozhin also emerged as a populist political figure, excoriating Russia’s military leadership for corruption. His angry recordings and videos posted to the Telegram messaging network cast top military and Kremlin officials as unaware and uncaring of the struggles of regular Russian soldiers.
So far, Mr. Putin has not reined in Mr. Prigozhin, even as Mr. Putin’s security forces have jailed or fined thousands of Russians for criticizing the military or opposing the war. Some people who know Mr. Putin have said they believe that he still sees Mr. Prigozhin as a loyal servant applying needed pressure on a sprawling military apparatus. Others theorized that the Kremlin had orchestrated Mr. Prigozhin’s tirades against Mr. Shoigu, the defense minister, to deflect blame from Mr. Putin himself.
But Friday’s statements complicated the picture, with Mr. Prigozhin going after not just Mr. Shoigu but also unnamed “oligarchs” around Mr. Putin, while casting the entire official rhetoric around the invasion as a sham. He said there was “nothing out of the ordinary” in Ukraine’s military posture on the eve of the February 2022 invasion — challenging the Kremlin’s justification that Ukraine was on the verge of attacking Russian-backed separatist territory in Ukraine’s east.
“Our holy war with those who offend the Russian people, with those who are trying to humiliate them, has turned into a racket,” he said.
Mr. Prigozhin also asserted in his video that Ukraine’s counteroffensive to gain back territory was going much more poorly for Russia than the government was letting on. On Telegram, pro-war commentators quickly pushed back against that claim, including Igor Girkin, a former paramilitary commander who himself has often criticized Russia’s top brass.
“Prigozhin already should have been handed over to a military tribunal for many things,” Mr. Girkin wrote. “Now also for treason.”
Julian E. Barnes and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
Media Contact: Sgt. Victor Jackson Office: 818-937-8888 Cell: 818-307-3208 Email: GPDPIO@Glendaleca.gov
Hate Flyers Posted in Glendale
Glendale, CA– During the early morning of March 31, 2023, the Glendale Police Department received a call from a passerby who saw disturbing flyers posted on city light poles in the 500 block of South Central Avenue.
The flyers were posted around St. Mary’s Armenian church and contained an anti-Armenian message of hate and violence. Officers responded to the scene and immediately began an investigation of a possible hate crime directed toward the Armenian Church and the Armenian Community.
The Glendale Police Department is investigating this incident thoroughly in the hopes of identifying the perpetrator(s) responsible for spreading hate and fear within our community. We will work diligently to bring those responsible to justice.
We are in constant communication with city officials and community leaders to express our support and keep them abreast of investigative developments. The Glendale Police Department stands with our community against all hate incidents. We are committed to protecting those who live, work, or visit Glendale and maintaining a safe and inclusive community.
We are asking for anyone with information to contact the Glendale Police Department immediately by call 818-548-4911.
A video of the deliberate killing of Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijani soldiers was spread on Azerbaijani social platforms.
The incident took place on September 13 of 2022 during the large-scale aggression unleashed by the Azerbaijani armed forces on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. The fact is confirmed by the study of the location, the combination of this video with similar videos, as well as the complex combination of weather conditions, uniforms of servicemen, conversation of Azerbaijani soldiers and other parameters.
This is another war crime committed by the Azerbaijani troops, the source of which is the consistent policy of Azerbaijanis’ hatred against Armenian people and culture, which is implemented by Azerbaijan, manifested in all spheres of public life, starting from the educational content, and in the statements of the president of that country.
Vladimir Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization on September 21 signaled a major escalation of the war and caught the world’s attention. Putin was forced to do this because of battlefield reverses and a shortage of personnel. Other sources of personnel are drying up. Many commentators have pointed to training and equipment challenges, which will be real, but not insurmountable. Mobilization will not turn the tide of war, but may allow Putin to implement his political strategy, which is to outlast the Europeans. What is uncertain is whether Russian popular opposition to mobilization will derail military plans. In any case, Ukraine has a window of opportunity for battlefield success before these mobilized troops arrive.
Today our armed forces . . . are fighting on the line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometers long, fighting not only against neo-Nazi units but actually the entire military machine of the collective West. . . . I find it necessary to support the proposal of the Defense Ministry and the General Staff on partial mobilization in the Russian Federation to defend our Motherland and its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the safety of our people and people in the liberated territories. . . . Only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up. Before being sent to their units, those called up for active duty will undergo mandatory additional military training based on the experience of the special military operation.
The decree implementing partial mobilization adds what is called “stop loss.” Personnel will remain on active duty involuntarily until the end of partial mobilization. This is a sensible step when militaries face personnel shortages and large-scale military operations, as the personnel retained are already in units and trained. However, in the United States, “stop loss” proved to be controversial when implemented during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Critics called it a “backdoor draft.”
Putin declared that this mobilization would be limited to former military personnel. It would not expand conscription or put the nation on a war footing; that requires full mobilization. Putin’s announcement also included an industrial surge to increase weapons and munitions production.
Later, Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu elaborated that the mobilization would come in phases. He also described a deliberate training process. Shoigu and Putin stated that students and workers in the defense industry would be exempted.
This action is roughly equivalent to U.S. partial mobilization (10 USC 12302). The United States has used that authority many times in the past for Desert Storm and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for smaller operations.
Some have speculated that this will severely disrupt the Russian economy, but that is unlikely. Even if 300,000 troops are mobilized, that represents only .4 percent of the Russian labor force.
Initial Reports Indicate Mobilization Is Going Badly
The bureaucracy appears unready to handle the demands of such a complex effort. Personnel must be identified, notified, medically evaluated, administratively brought onto active duty, and then sent to a training establishment. During this administrative period, personnel must be fed and housed. The United States suffered problems with its mobilization mechanisms in 1991, the first large mobilization since World War II, but worked out procedures over time. The Russians may have the same experience.
Like many bureaucratic tasks in Russia, mobilization is being conducted using quotas levied on districts. The quota system decentralizes and simplifies execution but incentivizes local authorities to prioritize output at any cost. This can create abuses.
In addition to bureaucratic problems, security forces seem to be threatening demonstrators with mobilization, contrary to the announced policy.
Russia Is Struggling to Turn Potential Power into Actual Power
From the beginning of the conflict, commentators have pointed out that the Russian population is over three times the size of Ukraine’s (146 million versus 41 million), with larger armed forces and a much larger economy. In theory, it should prevail in a long war of attrition. Russia’s problem has been turning potential power into battlefield capabilities. Putin has described the conflict as a “special military operation” and not a war. That limited his powers. For example, the Russian military has not been able to use many conscripts, even though they constitute the major part of the ground forces. Partial mobilization will tap into some of this potential power. Ukraine, in contrast, has been able to access all the elements of its national power.
Russia Is Mobilizing Because It Is Running out of Soldiers
The Russian army has taken many casualties (some estimate 80,000) out of an initial invasion force of about 190,000 troops. Ground combat troops numbered about 140,000. From the beginning, the Russians have scrambled to maintain the ranks, taking a wide variety of actions, sometimes called “covert mobilization.” They have deployed soldiers from nearly every unit in Russia, mobilized some reservists, brought in ethnic minorities (particularly Chechens), offered large recruiting bonuses to personnel who will enlist or stay in the service, used the private contractor Wagner Group, and even recruited in the prisons. The quality of replacement personnel has not been high, but the numbers and quality have been enough to keep the Russian forces operating in the field.
As Russia analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee point out, the Russian army is structured to defend the homeland against invasion, not to invade a neighboring country. Thus, units were typically at about 70 percent personnel strength and had a lot of conscripts who could not deploy outside of Russia proper. For defense of the homeland, reserve call-up would fill the ranks. For a special military operation, where mobilization authorities were limited, there were just not enough troops to deploy. This is a very different military from that of the United States, which is structured for high readiness and rapid deployment outside the country.
The Timing Is Driven by Recent Russian Reverses on the Battlefield
Russia’s attacks in the Donbas region petered out in July having gained some territory, though at high cost. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. In the southwest, the Ukrainians are currently attacking toward Kherson and though they have not taken much territory, they are putting the Russians under considerable pressure. Russian forces are vulnerable, occupying a large bridgehead on the west side of the Dnipro River. Ukrainian precision strikes are squeezing Russian logistics.
In the northeast, the Ukrainian counteroffensive gained much territory east of Kharkiv, though progress has slowed. The Russian generals likely told Putin that they could not hold their gains without additional troops.
Putin did have two other options: use nuclear weapons or negotiate a settlement. The commentariat has speculated endlessly about the use of nuclear weapons. Such use would risk Russian national survival for a sliver of Ukrainian territory. So far, Russia has limited nuclear threats to NATO direct intervention or Ukrainian movement into the Russian homeland.
A negotiated settlement is not possible currently because the two sides are so far apart. Putin cannot give up his conquests without endangering his regime, but Ukraine insists that Russia evacuate all occupied territory, including Crimea.
To further put the Russian force into perspective, the United States sent about 540,000 troops to Saudi Arabia in 1991 to liberate Kuwait from Iraq. Total coalition forces numbered about 750,000. Russia has conducted this invasion on a shoestring.
Russia Lacks a Strong Reserve Force
Russia has tried to create reserve forces like those in NATO, which train regularly, but such efforts have not made much headway. Instead, Russia maintains lists of former soldiers who could be called to service. This is typical of military system that uses conscription because the system produces relatively large numbers of personnel. Those conscripts recently released from active duty have usable skills, but those skills deteriorate rapidly. It is a much less expensive system, but requires time and training post-mobilization.
The United States maintains a similar system called the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). This consists of military personnel who have completed their active-duty commitment but not their full eight-year military requirement. (All servicemembers have an eight-year military obligation, and enlistment contracts are written for that period of time.) These personnel remain on military rolls for possible mobilization. However, this is a second backup force behind the organized reserve units that train regularly and that most people think of as reservists. The United States called some IRR personnel to service during the height of the Iraq war, but it was very controversial, and the numbers were minimized. In effect, Russia is calling up its version of the IRR.
Training Will Be a Challenge
Both Putin and Shoigu stated that reservists would receive additional training, likely two weeks. By U.S. standards, this is not nearly enough. The United States gave mobilized units months of training before sending them to Iraq or Afghanistan, though personnel mobilized as individuals received less training. The Russian military bureaucracy is not prepared to take on so many troops. Unlike the United States, the Russians do not have basic training centers. Most training is done at the combat units, but much of that training cadre has been sent to Ukraine or become casualties.
However, the Ukrainians are not well-trained either. At the beginning of the war, Ukraine created many new units in its territorial army and provided them with only rudimentary military skills. Reports indicate that personnel may have received two or three weeks of training. The troops have gained some skills from six months of combat, but these focus mainly on survival. NATO is training thousands of Ukrainian troops, with some undergoing basic training in United Kingdom and others receiving specialized training at bases throughout Europe, but these troops are a minority. The average level of Ukrainian training is still very low. By way of comparison, the U.S. Marine Corps gives new recruits 22 weeks of training before sending them into combat. Both sides are far below that level. So Russian training will be inadequate and not up to U.S. standards, but the Russians are fighting poorly trained, though highly motivated Ukrainian forces, not the United States.
Equipment May Be Less of a Challenge
Although the Russians will certainly have some equipment problems, that is unlikely to be a major constraint. The problem with the Russian forces to date has been overequipping, not underequipping. As Michael Kofman and Rob Lee documented, the Russians maintained their units with a full set of equipment but only a partial complement of personnel. That is one reason for the high losses―not enough infantry to protect all the vehicles. The Russians, like the Soviets before them, never throw anything away, so they have lots of equipment in storage. This would not be top-of-the-line equipment, but it faces Ukrainian forces that are still armed mainly with Soviet-era equipment.
Further, if most mobilize personnel fill the gaps in existing units, then equipment problems ease. These personnel will fall in on equipment that these units already have.
Logistics has been a problem, but that seems to have eased. In the early days, Russian logistic support was abysmal, causing troops to go hungry and vehicles to be abandoned. Like many militaries, the Russians were not ready for the logistical demands of war, which are much different from the experience of peacetime exercises. However, Russian troops today do not seem to be going hungry, and the fact that the Russians fire thousands of artillery shells every day indicates a logistics system that is operating adequately.
The Purpose of Mobilization Is Ultimately Political Rather than Victory on the Battlefield
It is unlikely that the Russian generals believe this mobilization will shift the initiative and allow Russia to launch major attacks. Ukrainian forces are getting too powerful with foreign equipment and training. Rather, the strategy is likely to hold on to what Russia has already captured and push the war into the winter. Putin aims to put the European populations under enough stress from the cold, inflation, and high energy prices that they demand an end to the war. Survey data indicates that the European populations support Ukraine in its fight for democracy but are ambivalent about providing weapons and becoming involved. (The Baltic countries and Poland are an exception, being on the front line and much more concerned about Russian intentions.) Thus, Europeans might force their governments to push for a cease-fire and negotiations.
The Wild Card Is Political Opposition
Domestic opposition arose at the beginning of the war, with antiwar demonstrations in many cities. However, the Russian security forces successfully suppressed these demonstrations. The government-controlled media dominated the information space, convincing most Russians that the war was defensive and intended to suppress a neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine. Overall, the war seems to be popular with the average Russian. However, mobilization involves more Russian families in the war and has induced fears among many men that they might be called up. Opposition seems to be widespread. However, it remains to be seen whether this opposition will have an operational effect on the war or if it will peter out as earlier antiwar efforts did.
What to Watch for
Several indicators are worth monitoring to see how this mobilization plays out. First, does domestic opposition interfere with the mobilization? From a military point of view, the key question is whether such opposition significantly reduces the number of personnel available for mobilization. Can Russian forces hold out until the mobilized personnel start arriving? Although the front lines seem to have stabilized, the Russian position is fragile. It could crack in the weeks before mobilized personnel arrive. Can Russia train and equip these forces? Although the standards do not need to rise to the U.S. expectations, they do need to achieve a minimum level for personnel to be effective. Finally, does Russian morale maintain at least a minimum level? Russian morale has not been high, but the Russians keep fighting. A thousand years of history indicate that the Russians can continue fighting in conditions other nations might not tolerate.
Mark F. Cancian is a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
The US House Speaker could hardly have timed her trip better, as Yerevan questions the merits of relying on Moscow as its main security ally.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a reputation for visiting hotspots. Her recent travels to Armenia raises debate about the country’s political allegiances | Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images
YEREVAN, Armenia — Crowds lined the streets of Yerevan hours before Nancy Pelosi’s fleet of seven slick black cars pulled into the center of the Armenian capital on Sunday.
Waving American flags, thousands of people turned out to catch a glimpse of the speaker of the House of Representatives as she paid a historic visit to the Caucasian nation, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to do so since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Those U.S. flags carried a significant political message about the country’s political allegiances. For years, Armenia chose to be a key strategic ally of the Kremlin, but many are now increasingly questioning whether Moscow can act as guarantor of the nation’s security against the superior firepower of neighboring Azerbaijan, which launched a massive artillery bombardment on Tuesday. Since then 135 Armenians and 77 Azeris have died in a conflict that looks at risk of breaking through a fragile ceasefire.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin mired in a war that is rapidly turning against him in Ukraine, Yerevan is finding that its appeals for help from a Moscow-led security grouping, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, are falling on deaf ears. That’s a pivotal strategic problem as the enemy in Azerbaijan is lavishly supported by Turkey, a regional military heavyweight that Yerevan associates with the genocide of the Armenian people during World War I.
10 people were detained in Yerevan on the case of clashes between police and protesters at the intersection of Demirchyan and Proshyan streets, the press service of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia informed NEWS.am.
On 3 June, there was a clash between law enforcers and supporters of the Resistance Movement at the intersection of Demirchyan and Proshyan streets. The law enforcers used stun grenades against the protesters. In addition, 15 people were brought as defendants. They were charged with organizing mass riots.
Ten of them were placed under arrest as a preventive measure. Four more persons were taken to a non-custodial measure. Apart from the 15 people in question, one more citizen was detained. A petition for his arrest has been filed. The preliminary investigation is continuing.
FromTheUssr 