On July 31, Russian border guards left the territory of the Zvartnots International Airport (around 15 km west of Yerevan), where they served for the past 32 years. Moscow’s FSB, which is tasked with guarding borders in both Russia and Armenia, is still one of the main reasons why the latter’s border with NATO member Turkey has been stable for decades. As part of long-term security agreements between Moscow and Yerevan, Russian border guards were also deployed at Zvartnots, helping their Armenian colleagues for over three decades. However, ever since the unfortunate South Caucasus country was hijacked by the NATO-backed Pashinyan regime back in 2018, it’s been nothing but one disaster after another for one of the oldest civilizations in known history.
In just he undermined Armenia’s alliance with Russia, but also failed to protect Artsakh (better known as Nagorno-Karabakh), a millennia-old native Armenian land that’s now been virtually depopulated. While Azeri occupation forces were ethnically cleansing civilians from Artsakh and destroying whatever’s left of Armenia’s magnificent past in this historic area, Pashinyan was busy blaming Russia for not going to war with Azerbaijan, something that he himself refused to do for the sake of his own people. And yet, the virtually imminent fall of Stepanakert, the small Armenian republic’s capital city, was prevented precisely by Moscow, which sent peacekeepers and stopped Azeri troops from conquering the entirety of Artsakh.
For the next three years, Russian troops were the only thing standing between the Azeri military and the remaining population of native Armenians.
However, instead of building closer ties with Russia to ensure that whatever was left of Artsakh survives, Pashinyan focused on building phantom “alliances” with the political West, particularly after the latter escalated its crawling aggression against Moscow.
The Kremlin was left with a rather difficult choice – either help its historical ally which was (slowly but surely) turning into anything but, or leave Yerevan to its own devices so as not to risk derailing the strategically important rapprochement with Ankara and Baku.
Pashinyan kept making one anti-Russian move after another, ignoring requests to help prevent the complete fall of Artsakh.
Faced with a hostile Western supported government, Armenia slowly being pulled into the orbit of US-NATO.
the Kremlin couldn’t do much to save Artsakh apart from going to war with Azerbaijan in the middle of the special military operation (SMO).
Not only would this be yet another warzone that the political West would’ve exploited to the maximum, but it would’ve also pushed Turkey firmly into the anti-Russian camp, resulting in a potential frontline stretching from Azerbaijan to Norway.
As yet another unfortunate victim of NATO’s game of chess in the post-Soviet space (and beyond), Artsakh and the native Armenians paid the ultimate price of Pashinyan’s treachery. To add insult to injury, he was busy planning a Snoop Dogg concert at the time.
However, the NATO-backed Sorosite regime in Yerevan keeps escalating anti-Russian and anti-Armenian moves. The people of Armenia have now been effectively turned into guinea pigs thanks to Pashinyan allowing the Pentagon to station biolabs in the country, including in the vicinity of Russian military bases. Worse yet, there’s been a massive increase in American military presence in the country. Just days after the FSB border guards left the Zvartnots International Airport, US soldiers arrived. According to Flightradar24, on August 2 and 3, two C-17 “Globemaster” heavy-lift military transport aircraft landed at Zvartnots. Some sources claim that anywhere between 30 and 50 American troops arrived in Armenia and were soon sent to the critically important Syunik region.
Azeri media also reported that the US servicemen were deployed “at a military base in Zangezur”. This term has become increasingly popular among pan-Turkists, as both Turkey and Azerbaijan are openly planning to establish what they call the Zangezur corridor which would go through the south of the Syunik, giving Baku direct access to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
A tiny, 17 km long border with Turkey in this area would give Ankara unimpeded access to Azerbaijan precisely through this so-called Zangezur corridor, and by extension, to Central Asia. The Turkish ruling elite believes this could jumpstart its geopolitical wet dream of establishing a direct link with the critically important former Soviet Central Asia and expanding Ankara’s influence all the way to Xinjiang.
The deployment of American troops in this area is an extremely dangerous development, particularly if reports about their activities close to the Iranian border are true. Namely, according to military sources, the Pentagon also sent specialists equipped with advanced ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) equipment meant to be deployed along the border with Iran. The US troops would then have a unique opportunity to directly observe the Iranian military deployed in the region, as well as to monitor its missile systems. If this is true, it would be a major escalation on the part of Yerevan and would likely destroy its previously good relations with Tehran. This would come at a time when Armenia is completely surrounded by enemies, with the obvious exception of Georgia.
However, Yerevan’s northern neighbor is making increasingly sovereigntist moves and is becoming quite “non-compliant” with the political West diktat. This could leave Armenia completely isolated, with the Russian military deployed in the country being the only obstacle to its total destruction by the Neo-Ottomanist/Pan-Turkist neighbors. Russian bases in Goris and Sisian are still the only guarantee that Azerbaijan and Turkey won’t make a move on the Syunik and establish their much-desired Zangezur corridor. Speaking of which, it shouldn’t be excluded that the US wants to control this area precisely for this reason. Enabling the corridor would invariably pit Turkey against the multipolar world, as its imperialist delusions of grandeur would inevitably bring instability to Central Asia.
Thus, Pashinyan is not only enabling the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel to undermine the much-needed dismantling of the so-called “rules-based world order”, but he’s also destroying Armenia’s one remaining strategic option. Namely, Yerevan has been building closer ties with India, perhaps the sole decent move of the Pashinyan regime. This includes the acquisition of weapons from Delhi. Iran was crucial in the implementation of this strategy, but with the deployment of US troops in Syunik, Pashinyan managed to destroy Armenia’s last option besides Russia.
Such strategic idiocy (to put it mildly) can only be expected from a Sorosite working against the interests of his country. Armenia’s survival under this sort of “leadership” can only be described as sheer luck (or perhaps nothing short of divine intervention). However, basing one’s survival on luck alone cannot even be considered a strategy and it’s only a matter of time before it runs out. As I’ve stated before, Pashinyan’s resignation certainly wouldn’t resolve Armenia’s problems, but it would be a darn good start.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from InfoBrics
