Azerbaijani forces attempt to raise a flag on Armenian territory
A video released on Friday on the Russian Telegram channels details the events of June 15 when Azerbaijani forces attempted to plant their flag on Armenia’s sovereign territory, after which Baku tightened its blockade of Artsakh by banning any travel on the road.
On June 15, Armenia’s National Security Service reported that its units prevented Azerbaijani forces from planting their flag on Armenian territory by firing shots. At the time a short video clip was circulated, prompting Armenian government officials to conjecture that Russian peacekeeping force were abetting the Azerbaijani forces in their effort to breach Armenia’s borders.
This resulted in a standoff between Yerevan and Moscow, with Armenia’s foreign ministry reporting that it had summoned Russia’s Ambassador to Armenia, Sergey Kopyrkin, and questioned him about the incident on the Hakari bridge.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova did not deny the involvement of Russian peacekeepers in the incident, telling reporters shorty after that the Russian forces were fulfilling their duties. She also shrugged off the incident by blaming it on the yet un-demarcated borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The video released on Friday — three weeks after the incident — on pro-Kremlin media outlets’ Telegram channels chronicles the day’s event and shows that Azerbaijani forces made four attempts to raise or plant their flag on the Armenia-side of the Hakari bridge. Friday’s footage also shows that the Russian peacekeeping forces were attempting to deter the Azerbaijanis from advancing into Armenia’s territory.
The footage also shows that Armenian NSS units prevented Azerbaijani forces from planting the flag and after successfully downing the flagpole, they folded the flag and returned it to the Azerbaijani side, which would make three further attempts at planting its flag, with the final attempt resulting in the shooting down of the flag from the pole.
Officials from Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan have not commented about the video.