Monday, September 4, 2023 Karabakh To Ration Bread Due To Blockade Nagorno-Karabakh - People line up outside a bakery in Stepanakert. Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have decided to ration bread in the capital Stepanakert to cope with a serious shortage of flour resulting from Azerbaijan’s nine-month blockade of the Lachin corridor. They began handing out Monday ration stamps to residents of the town which is home to roughly half of Karabakh’s estimated population of 120,000. Starting from Tuesday, every Stepanakert resident will be able to buy only half a loaf of bread weighing 200 grams. Bread has become an even more important staple food in Stepanakert and other Karabakh towns since Azerbaijan tightened the blockade in mid-June by halting all relief supplies to the Armenian-populated region carried out by Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Local food stores have run out of most other basic foodstuffs rationed since January. The bread shortage worsened at the end of August, with locals spending more hours waiting in lines to buy up to two loaves per person from bakeries. Karabakh’s Agricultural Support Fund again urged local farmers at the weekend to sell off their wheat stocks and thus help alleviate the deficit. The fund set a higher price -- 250 drams per kilogram (65 U.S. cents) -- and offered other incentives in hopes of buying more wheat grown by them. By comparison, the market-based wholesale price of wheat in Armenia currently stands at less than 100 drams per kilogram. “Dear farmers, please … sell the stored wheat to the fund so that we can together overcome the existing crisis as soon as possible,” the public agency said in a statement. “The struggle is not only war, this is also a struggle from which we can emerge victorious only thanks to our unity.” The humanitarian crisis has prompted serious concern from the United States, the European Union and other international actors. As well as insisting on the immediate reopening of the Lachin corridor, the Western powers have implicitly urged Karabakh to agree to another, Azerbaijani-controlled supply route sought by Baku. Most Karabakh Armenians appear to remain strongly opposed to that route. Scores of them have been blocking a road leading to the Azerbaijani town of Aghdam to prevent two Azerbaijani trucks loaded with 40 tons of flour from entering Karabakh. They as well as the authorities in Stepanakert believe that the proposed aid is a publicity stunt aimed at legitimizing the blockade and helping Azerbaijan regain full control over Karabakh. Tensions Mount Between Russia, Armenia Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, April 19, 2022. Russia denounced on Monday Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s fresh criticism of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and his claims that Moscow is “unwilling or unable” to defend Armenia and may eventually leave the South Caucasus. Highlighting unprecedented tensions between the two allied countries, a Russian official warned Yerevan against helping the West “squeeze Russia out” of the region. In an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica daily publicized by his press office over the weekend, Pashinian declared that his government is trying to “diversify our security policy” because Armenia’s long-standing heavy reliance on Russia has proved a “strategic mistake.” “Armenia’s security architecture, including the logic of weapons and ammunition acquisition, has been connected to Russia by 99,999 percent,” he said. “But now that Russia itself needs weapons and munitions [amid the war in Ukraine] it is obvious that in this situation the Russian Federation could not provide for Armenia's security needs even if it wanted to.” “The Russian Federation has been in our region, the South Caucasus, for quite a long time. But we have seen situations when the Russian Federation simply left the South Caucasus in one day, one month or one year,” he went on, apparently referring to the 1917 collapse of the Russian Empire. “There are processes that, of course, lead one to think that the same scenario could be repeated and that one day we will simply wake up and see that Russia is not here,” added Pashinian. Russia hit back at Pashinian, with an unnamed “diplomatic source” in Moscow calling Pashinian’s comments “unacceptable.” “In fact, they are trying to artificially squeeze Russia out of the South Caucasus, using Yerevan as a means of achieving this goal,” the source told the official TASS news agency. “As Armenia’s closest neighbor and friend, Russia, does not intend to leave the region. However, this should be a two-way street: Armenia should also not become a weapon for the West to squeeze out Russia.” Pashinian also slammed the Russian peacekeeping forces for their failure to reopen the Lachin corridor, Nagorno-Karabakh’s sole land link with Armenia, blocked by Azerbaijan last December. The blockade, he said, means the peacekeepers are “not fulfilling their mission” defined by the Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 war in Karabakh. The Russian source cited by TASS rejected Pashinian’s “baseless attacks” on the peacekeepers. He said that the Armenian premier’s controversial recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh “made the work of the Russian peacekeeping contingent as difficult as possible.” The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, likewise charged on August 30 that Pashinian’s far-reaching concession to Baku paved the way for the Azerbaijani blockade and the resulting humanitarian crisis in Karabakh. Her Armenian opposite number dismissed the claim and cited a long list of Armenian grievances against Moscow. The rift between Moscow and Yerevan has deepened over the past year, fueling speculation about a pro-Western shift in Armenia’s traditional geopolitical orientation. Some of Pashinian’s political allies and Western-funded civic groups have welcomed such a prospect. By contrast, Armenia’s main opposition groups are seriously concerned about it, arguing that the West is not ready to give Armenia security guarantees or significant military aid. Armenian Airport Again ‘Struck By Azeri Gunfire’ • Ruzanna Stepanian Armenia - An L-410 plane carrying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lands at Kapan airport, August 17, 2023. Azerbaijani troops have reportedly opened fire at the civilian airport of Kapan for the third time since the recent start of commercial flights between the Armenian border town and Yerevan. Armenia’s Investigative Committee confirmed on Monday reports that the small airport’s walls and windows were damaged by several gunshots fired early on September 1. The committee said it is conducting a criminal investigation into attempted murder and damage to property motivated by “ethnic hatred.” “According to preliminary data, the gunshots were fired from Azerbaijani-controlled territory,” the spokesman for the law-enforcement agency, Gor Abrahamian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. Armenia’s state border guard service said earlier that the Kapan airport first came under cross-border fire on August 18 less than 24 hours after a plane carrying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian landed there. According to it, three gunshots were fired from Azerbaijani army positions overlooking the facility, damaging its roof and one of the windows. Another shooting incident was reported on August 19 just minutes after a plane carrying other senior officials from Yerevan touched down on the runway. Local officials accused Azerbaijan of trying to disrupt the first post-Soviet flight service between Yerevan and Kapan launched by the NovAir airline on August 21. Later in August, the Armenian government notified the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) about the shootings and asked the 193-nation body to help prevent a repeat of such incidents. A spokeswoman for a Yerevan-based ticketing agency representing NovAir said that the airline continued its twice-weekly flights to and from Kapan, most recently on Monday, following the latest gunfire. The private carrier uses small L-410 aircraft capable of carrying up to 17 passengers. Thousands Rally In Yerevan For Karabakh Armenia - Opposition supporters rally in Yerevan, September 2, 2023. The Armenian opposition rallied thousands of supporters in Yerevan at the weekend to show support for Nagorno-Karabakh’s population blockaded by Azerbaijan and demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation. The rally organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) and joined by other major opposition parties as well as former Presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Robert Kocharian was timed to coincide with the 32nd anniversary of the proclamation of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It came amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in the Armenian-populated region resulting from the nearly nine-month Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor. “Today the heroic people of Artsakh are putting up unprecedented resistance,” Dashnaktsutyun leader Ishkhan Saghatelian told the crowd rallying in Yerevan’s Liberty Square. “The Armenian mother, with her hungry child in her arms, refuses the food offered by the enemy and declares that this struggle is a struggle for identity, for dignity, for living in the native land and for self-determination.” Echoing Russian Foreign Ministry statements, Saghatelian claimed that Pashinian paved the way for the blockade with his recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Pashinian has no popular mandate to make such a concession to Baku, he said, branding the Armenian premier as a European Union “puppet.” Armenia - Opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelian speaks during a rally in Yerevan, September 2, 2023. “All mediating countries and international organizations should bear in mind that the person with whom they are negotiating today and who speaks on behalf of Armenia does not represent the Armenian people and any agreement reached with him is null and void,” added Saghatelian. Saghatelian went on to promise renewed opposition protests aimed at scuttling a “treasonous” peace deal with Azerbaijan and removing Pashinian from power. “Our next meeting will not come too late,” he told the demonstrators without giving any dates. Armenia’s main opposition groups jointly staged daily protests in Yerevan in May and June 2022 after Pashinian signaled readiness to “lower the bar” on Karabakh’s status acceptable to his government. They claim to have delayed a “capitulation agreement” with Baku despite failing to topple him. Dashnaktsutyun vowed to launch another protest movement after Pashinian explicitly recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in May this year. Saghatelian spoke on Saturday of “active discussions taking place in the opposition camp” for that purpose. Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.