Despite large-scale offensive, Baku prepared for provocations, not for war

“The Azerbaijani leadership is making yet another attempt to provoke large-scale hostilities in the zone of contact with the armed forces of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic so as to upset stability and the balance of forces in the region. Following Armenia’s entry into the Eurasian Economic Union, the authorities in Baku have no choice but to accept the role of a regional outsider, especially as their relations with the West have deteriorated. Azerbaijan is losing the Russian market, and the application of the new visa law is fraught with danger of the mass return of Azerbaijanis from Russia to their homeland, which may aggravate the internal sociopolitical situation as a large part of the population lives at the expense of migrant workers. Besides, illegal immigrants from Russia may flood into Azerbaijan, which may lead to serious social and internal political conflicts due to the absence of jobs in Azerbaijan,” expert Bagrat Movsisyan told Aysor.am when speaking about the recent events on the border. As was reported, on the night of January 3 Azerbaijani troops made two subversive attempts in the southern and eastern directions of the Line of Contact with the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh, as a result of which a serviceman of Karabakh was wounded and two others killed.

According to  B. Movsisyan, discontent has recently grown in Azerbaijani society, and amid discontent of the country’s indigenous peoples with oppression and assimilation, the republic is gradually approaching a barrel of gunpowder. Under conditions of corruption of the authorities, dynastic rule, and flagrant human rights violations, Azerbaijan is becoming more vulnerable to external influence, and Baku realizes that.

“At the same time, the Russian-Turkish economic rapprochement in the energy sector means that Azerbaijan could also lose its former leverage on Ankara, which may considerably change the alignment of forces in the South Caucasus, strengthen the current status quo, and result in Azerbaijani capital outflow from Turkey. Baku can no longer influence greatly the opening of the Armenia-Turkey border and the Azerbaijani authorities realize that they are letting their ‘eldest brother’ out of the web of their intrigues,” the expert said. By escalating the situation on the Karabakh-Azerbaijani border, Baku is trying to move the Karabakh conflict resolution outside of the OSCE Minsk Group framework and shift it into platforms favorable to the Azerbaijani side becuase in the current international situation, the status quo will remain for decades, which is not to Azerbaijan’s advantage.  Yet, according to the expert, Baku wants to take advantage of the strained relations between Russia and the West to achieve its political goals: Baku opts for a confrontation with Russia -  in anticipation of a rapprochement with the U.S.

“Even if Azerbaijani-U.S. relations do not make progress, Baku will consider less severe criticism as a positive result. Prior to that, the Azerbaijani leadership was faced with the choice between the West and the Eurasian Union, while following Washington’s pressure, Baku staked on an obvious provocation against Moscow. The Azerbaijani leadership resorted to that step on November 12 by downing an Armenian helicopter and now Baku awaits approval from Washington.

Although Russia is the key supplier of weapons for the Azerbaijani army, the largest Azerbaijani diaspora lives in Russia, and despite their economic, cultural and other links, President Ilham Aliyev and his inner circle want to gain the West’s favor in order to win the next elections and ensure their security.   The authorities in Baku are afraid that the West may organize a local ‘maidan’ and topple the Aliyevs from power.
The economic crisis, the national currency’s depreciation, and lack of confidence in the security bodies are depressing Azerbaijani society discontented with the authorities’ policy. The authorities of the country, for their part, have no choice but to feed the population with terrible stories about the Armenian threat and problems due to ‘occupation of native Azerbaijani lands’. The propaganda machine of Azerbaijan tries to hide their own problems by launching attacks on Armenia through Azerbaijani profiles of social networks, also in order to boost domestic morale and spread panic and depression among Armenians.  

“The new subversive actions on the night of January 3 were a futile attempt of the Azerbaijani regime to cause panic and fear among the population of Artsakh and also restore the prestige of their own army among the Azerbaijani public. In this way, Azerbaijani troops decided to ‘prove’ their president’s determination to ‘liberate’ not only Artsakh, but also Zangezur and ‘Erivan’ and thus boost his image in the eyes of the public ahead of new electoral processes in the country. The purpose of Baku’s militarist rhetoric and statements about the ‘invincibility’ of the Azerbaijani army, ‘capture of saboteurs’ and other operations is to restore faith in the national army, increase the number of conscripts, reduce desertion and raise morale and combat readiness in the armed forces. All those measures are aimed at concealing the reasons corrupting the Azerbaijani army – the absence of a national idea, except xenophobia and fascism, as well as corruption, human rights violations, etc. Yet Baku forgets that professional contract servicemen – volunteers, rather than conscripts, are facing the Azerbaijani army, and the fact that the Armenian army suffered losses shows that the subversive action was being developed for a long time, but it was foiled during the offensive. In the near future, the Azerbaijani media will write about ‘incidents’ in various military units of the country,” B. Movsisyan noted.

In his words, the failed subversive operation and the enemy’s retreat show fighting efficiency of Armenian troops, the high level of the defense system of Armenia and Artsakh, and the fact that no risky ventures can frighten the people of Nagorno Karabakh anymore. Such subversive acts also demonstrate that despite a large-scale offensive, Baku is prepared only for provocations, but not a war.  Yet, as history shows, such ‘sorties’ of the enemy receive a disproportionate indirect response from the Armenian side, which is also evident from the recent panic of Azerbaijani military leadership and pro-government mass media.

“And, as always, Azerbaijan’s modern weapons, huge military budget and militarist statements cannot relieve pain of the families of servicemen who die senselessly because of adventures of their authorities,” the expert said.