Radio War Nerd EP #397 — 3rd Nagorno-Karabakh War, feat. Joshua Kucera

The guest totally skipped the ancient hold of Armenians over those lands and decided that Azeris were simply taking back the land

There has been a war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis over who is the bigger victim. Khojaly is instrumentalized by Azeri society as a genocide. The intention behind it is to draw equivalence to the Armenian Genocide, which coincidentally Azerbaijan denies. It’s not uncommon to see Azerbaijani state officials now push the new line that actually during the Armenian Genocide, it wasn’t a genocide against Armenians, but rather Turks who were the victims of genocide by the Armenians. Yes, ridiculous, but when the Aliyev regime maintains a tight grip over media, they can just pump ridiculous propaganda like this into to minds of Azerbaijanis. And Khojaly as a result has been weaponized as not just a tool for denial of Armenian suffering, but also a slick attempt to create a monopoly of suffering for Azerbaijanis around the events of the first war. However, Armenians were the targets of terrible pogroms in Azerbaijan. Sumgait, Kirovobad, Baku, among others. There were reports of Armenian women being raped in their own homes and left for dead, Armenians being hacked to death in the streets, even the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has recounted the horror publicly in interviews as he was forced to flee Baku as an Armenian Jew. The 250,000-300,000 Armenian population of Baku was then reduced to practically 0 in a short amount of time. However, these are events that have been memory-holed by the Aliyev regime and they are never talked about, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the average Azeri believes they never happened. Historical revisionism plays a big part in this amnesia. After the Baku pogrom against Armenians started, the Soviets came to restore order. Violence ensued and Azerbaijani rioters were killed. These armenophobic extremists have now been commemorated in Azerbaijan as “Black January”. Azerbaijan advertises it to the international public as a day of Azerbaijani patriots’ defiant uprising against the USSR. In reality, it is a commemoration for Azerbaijani extremists who were involved in bloody pogroms against the Armenians and whose lives were taken when the Soviets came to crack down on the inter-ethnic violence. Since then, leaders from around the world unwittingly visit the Black January memorial not knowing the full extent of the history, and are fooled into just thinking it is a commemoration of lives lost due to violence committed by the Soviets. This then creates the impression of legitimacy for this historical revisionism among Azeri society. I’m glad John and Mark brought up Ramil Safarov. Azeris play down his role in their society, but online it’s a different story.

I don’t understand where this idea that Russia was supposed to defend Artsakh is coming from. Artsakh is recognized by all as a part of Azerbaijan, even by Armenia now. IIRC they didn’t declare independence, nor did anybody recognize it. If we compare Artsakh to Donbass, Donbass bordered its main supporter. Artsakh does not. DNR/LNR declared their independence, then ‘un-declared’ it by signing Minsk accords to stay parts of Ukraine. Artsakh did nothing like that. DNR/LNR didn’t ethnically cleanse their territory. Armenians in 1990-91 did that by massacring and expelling Azeri population. That’s how Artsakh became ‘Azeri-frei’. Emotionally and culturally, most people here sympathize with Armenians. This is understandable. Azeri forces did massacre Armenians in Artsakh in 2020. But the genocide of 1990s has been somehow memory-holed. Azerbaijan taking control over Artsakh was only a question of time, just like Chechnya for Russia, whether we like it or not. The other confusion I see is about the Russian interests in the area. The base in Gyumri is nice to have for them, but it’s hardly strategic, especially with the logistics nightmare. Peacekeepers in Artsakh is 100% liability, no benefit. They will likely assist with evacuation of, allegedly, 120K of Armenians to the motherland. But after that, there will be little point for them to stay there. I’d argue that Russian presence in Gyumri is much more vital for Armenia that has no friends in the area and bitter enemies of Azerbaijan and Turkey. That’s why it’s so puzzling and stupid for them to alienate Russia and to some degree Iran, the only two powers that could offer military assistance to them. I suspect the factor of their diaspora is playing a major role in their psyche. Many of Armenians see themselves as Kardashians, Saroyans, and Aznavours that will be supported by the West against the Turks (they call Azeris Turks too). Of course, they won’t be, as 2020 and now 2023 clearly showed. It’s interesting that The Duran guys had a very similar analysis in their last video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAuiQsfrb6w. 14 minutes very worth watching.

I feel that Russia’s geopolitical credibility would have improved so much more had they effectively supported Armenia in the 2020 War instead of their military adventures in Ukraine. The loss of Artsakh will also be a stain on the diplomatic history of Russia.

MSM articles about this have been fucking disgusting https://www.thedailybeast.com/nagorno-karabakh-defeat-spells-the-end-for-putins-mock-nato?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon&user_emailA=21749e0f9d5170c8eded69c3054fb402&user_emailB=2d586d3d3d65c7a27924fe6827c351168ca84a5899828c0330cb2a96c5b8dd12&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=230921-Digest%20PM&utm_term=G%20List%20Daily%20Beast%20Newsletter%20PM