Armenian Genocide 2.0? One Step Closer with Armenia-US Joint Military Exercise on 9/11

by Joachim Hagopian

Armenia is one of the earliest Christian civilizations, and was one of the Soviet republics in the USSR.

In a statement on Wednesday 6 September 2023, Armenian Defense Ministry announced the joint military drills with the US, dubbed “Eagle Partner 2023,” to be conducted “in the framework of preparation for participation in international peacekeeping missions.”

The drills will begin on September 11, 2023. Will this provoke Russia?

In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, published on Sunday September 3^rd, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made the following statements:

“Armenia’s security architecture was 99.999% linked to Russia, including when it came to the procurement of arms and ammunition. But today we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms and ammunition (for the war in Ukraine) and in this situation it’s understandable that even if it wishes so, the Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia’s security needs. This example should demonstrate to us that dependence on just one partner in security matters is a strategic mistake.”

Russia has a mutual defense contract with Armenia, and there is a  Russian military post inside the Republic of Armenia. There is also a Russian peacekeeping force stationed at the border between Azerbaijan and the landlocked, contested breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh (“Artsakh” to Armenians who’ve lived there since ancient times).

However, Putin has ignored the fact that Azerbaijan’s blockade is causing Armenians in Artsakh to starve to death, ignoring the worsening, blatant humanitarian crisis with families down to rationing a piece of bread all day.

Letting thousands of Armenians starve is hardly honoring Moscow’s defense pact with Armenia. It’s a clear, sobering reality that Russia has elected to abandon its security commitment with the Republic of Armenia, allowing the 3-mile Lachin corridor separating Artsakh from Armenia as its only pathway connection to the outside world remain closed since December12, 2022. 90% of Artsakh’s food supply arrived from Armenia through the crucial corridor.

Pashinyan stated that with Russia waging war in Ukraine for more than a year and a half, he concludes that Moscow is unable to fulfill its obligations to Armenia or deems Armenia not pro-Russian enough, and that the Kremlin no longer views its involvement in the South Caucasus as a high enough priority. In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insists:

“Russia is an absolutely integral part of this region. Russia plays a consistent, very important role in stabilising the situation in this region … and we will continue to play this role Russia is an integral part of this region.”

On Tuesday September 5^th, the always saucy Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was far more bluntly critical of Pashinyan, claiming his comments were “public rhetoric verging on rudeness,” adding that rather than blaming others, Yerevan should take responsibility for its own actions.

In the face of continued Azerbaijani aggression in recent years, the Yerevan government as a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) also urgently requested support from fellow CSTO members Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, but that too fell on deaf ears.

So running out of options, Prime Minister Pashinyan decided to increase Armenia’s ties with the West, and as a result, from September 11 to the 20^th, Armenia will participate in joint military exercises with the United States. Though this may be understandable, it’s very likely yet another decisive error in judgment since relying on Washington for much of anything these days invites deep trouble. Just look at what’s happening to Ukraine’s national security ever since 2014 when the US illegally overthrew its democratically elected leader and installed a neo-Nazi government in Kiev.

In a statement on Wednesday September 6^th, Armenian Defense Ministry announced the joint military drills with the US, dubbed “Eagle Partner 2023,” to be conducted “in the framework of preparation for participation in international peacekeeping missions.”

This could open a pandora’s box with another Ukraine scenario for Armenia. Reuters reports that a US military spokesman specified that only 75 US soldiers and 185 Armenian soldiers will take part in this rather small–scale 9-day operation.  It’s likely more symbolic, sending the obvious message to Putin that he needs to intervene in Artsakh before conditions grow worse. Dmitry Peskov’s response to the announced military drill between Armenia and the US:

“Of course, such news causes concern, especially in the current situation. Therefore, we will deeply analyse this news and monitor the situation.”

US deputy Secretary of State, neocon Kiev regime changer herself Victoria Nuland, has been salivating over creating the divisive wedge between Armenia and Russia for a full decade as yet one more pro-Western neighbor on Russia’s doorstep falling into the pocket of the anti-Russian West. This all could’ve and should’ve been avoided had President Vladimir Putin simply given the ethically responsive order for his “peacekeepers” to merely do their assigned job to ensure peace prevails — by forcing the Lachin reopening.

Allowing Baku to commit more genocide against more Armenians is definitely not keeping the peace, nor, for that matter, in anyone’s best interest living in this treacherous world. If it weren’t such high stakes, flirting with World War III, Armenia courting favor with Russia’s chief rival is like a jealous schoolgirl flirting with another boy to make her boyfriend jealous.

Getting back to today’s dire stakes, by wilfully refusing to permit food, fuel and vital medical supplies be brought into Artsakh from Armenia, Azerbaijan is violating the Moscow brokered truce after the Azeri-Armenian 44-day war in late 2020. But even more significant is that Baku is premeditatedly starving 120,000 Armenians and resuming the genocide where Turkey left off a century ago, this time perpetrated by Azerbaijan’s Turkic brethren.

Genocide by Starvation

The International Red Cross has a fleet of trucks sitting idly by at the border for weeks now loaded with vital emergency supplies but unable to enter Artsakh. Russian soldiers passively look on, allowing this international crime spectacle to go on unimpeded and unpunished, essentially rendering Russia an accomplice to the international crime of genocide.

Even former prosecutor to the Hague’s International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, released an August 7, 2023 report entitled “Genocide against Armenians in 2023.” It accused Azerbaijan outright of legally meeting the definition of genocide, and recommending the case be brought before the ICC. But all it prompted was an emergency UN Security Council meeting held two weeks later on August 21^st urgently calling for Azeri President Ilham Aliyev to lift the Lachin corridor blockade and allow supplies through.

It changed nothing as dictator Aliyev correctly calculated that with the world in multiple energy crises now, and needing oil from his Caspian reserves more than ever, the rest of the world would meekly squawk, then look the other way. He was right as without any negative consequence backing up the feeble UN pleas, why would the Aliyev dictatorship even anticipate any unwanted consequence.

UN Security Council member Russia’s peacekeeping force is looking the other way, refusing to intercede despite clear violation of the 2020 truce signed by Baku, Moscow and Yerevan.

I believe Aliyev remains smugly confident that starving a few Armenians in a territory Josef Stalin gave to Azerbaijan a century ago (despite 96% of the residents at the time being Armenian living in their homeland for millennia), that the world wrongly still agrees technically and legally it still belongs to Azeris. Yet this morally reprehensible 1923 decision by Stalin, as perhaps the world’s biggest genocidal murderer in history, is still allowed to stand in a world that doesn’t care about 120,000 people whose lives are increasingly in grave danger now.

A CNN article on Wednesday September 6^th revealed the plight of one Artsakh resident, Ani Kirakosyani, from the village of Haturk, who became pregnant a month after the blockade began. With food unavailable, she’s been living off of tomatoes and beans from her garden. Public transportation in Artsakh was suspended on July 25th due to fuel shortages brought on by the corridor closure, resulting in Ani not able to receive medical care.

Six months into her pregnancy, experiencing severe abdominal pain, she landed in the hospital. But the ambulance driver had to pick up six other patients along the way due to fuel rationing. Ani was told that her complications necessitated her giving birth three months premature. With her husband working with the military 100 miles away, again from lack of fuel, he could not be there with his wife when doctors told her she had a stillbirth resulting from malnutrition. By phone Ani Kirakosyani told CNN:

If not for the blockade, I would be playing with my child today.

The number of miscarriages in Artsakh have soared to four times the rate from this time last year.  Azeri military refuse to allow international media to enter the enclave since the blockade went into effect nearly nine months ago. My August 17^th article on this growing humanitarian crisis reported that two days earlier on the 15^th of last month, 40-year old K. Hovhannisyan became the first starvation casualty dying from chronic malnutrition caused by what appears to be “Armenian genocide 2.0.”

Olesya Vartanyan, a senior South Caucasus analyst at the non-profit conflict prevention organization Crisis Group, told Reuters that in recent days, social media footage indicates increasing Azeri military movement along the Armenia-Azerbaijan frontline, warning:

It doesn’t look good at all. 

So, the world is watching genocide repeat itself and Putin’s Russia shamefully refuses to come to Armenians’ aid in Artsakh and honor its security commitment.

One can easily understand why Republic of Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan is stating it was Armenia’s regretful, strategic mistake to depend solely on Russia for its security. At the same time, it’s a disgrace the world of nations just sits back passively allowing Armenians to starve to death once again, a century after a million and a half perished from the last Armenian genocide.

But that’s the world we’re living in today, where the value of human life seemingly grows cheaper by the day. Elites are actively committing genocide, exterminating the entire human race, with few among us aware or even care, much less dare to fight back for our species survival.

— Joachim Hagopian is a former US Army officer and a psychologist.