Russia definitely won't support Armenia in a cross-border military conflict with Azerbaijan, leading analyst of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications Mikhail Neyzhmakov said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on Yerevan's appeal to the CSTO demanding to respond to the artillery battles provoked by the Armenian army on the border of the Tovuz region of Azerbaijan and Tavush region of Armenia.
“Russia is undoubtedly interested in settling the conflict by diplomatic means as soon as possible, and this approach does not imply direct public support for one of the parties. The very restrained commentary regarding these events by the CSTO secretariat on July 14 (despite the presence of participants clearly sympathetic to Baku in the bloc) was probably agreed on with Moscow,” the expert noted.
At the same time, there is evidence that Armenia did not count on the intervention of Russia or military support from the CSTO. “Although the statement of the representative of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia Artsrun Hovhannisyan that his country does not consider it necessary to appeal to the CSTO “for interference or any action” due to the local scale of the conflict was made after the comment of the Secretariat of the CSTO, during the first stage of aggravation Nikol Pashinyan showed that he is determined to respond to key political challenges as publicly as possible,” he said.
“If Pashinyan counted on Moscow’s military intervention and the escalation of the conflict, he would become much more active in making public steps and statements with the message “our country in danger” and demonstrate close personal involvement in preparing for war. This would include, for example, holding constant public meetings with the security forces from the very beginning of the development of events, actively focusing his attention on the military threat, possibly departing for the combat zone. But in reality, on the contrary, quite a lot of attention in Pashinyan's public activities in recent days has been paid to the non-military agenda," Mikhail Neyzhmakov explained.
