Let us forget the ‘Lavrov plan’

Of course, there are political forces and politicians in Armenia, who, in one way or another, link their aspirations to Russia's support. Many of them closely cooperate with the political circles in that country, receiving and sending "messages". "Handing over [Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorno-]Karabakh under Russian mandate" is precisely one of such messages. In my opinion, the proposal is unacceptable, because if you voluntarily cede some part of your sovereignty, the one, who receives that part, feels freer in imposing specific decisions on you. It seems to me that on the contrary, it is necessary to reinforce the sovereignty of the people of Artsakh [Karabakh]. In this regard, the efforts of Prime Minister [Nikol Pashinyan] to have representatives of this country involved in the negotiations are essentially correct.

And on the contrary, it seems to me that the attempts to "bring a victory of the Armenian people from Mr Putin" are senseless. Before April 2018, [when a velvet revolution brought Nikol Pashinyan to power], this was a functional mechanism, but now that Armenian citizens elected themselves their own government (given all of their shortcomings) without pressure from anyone and without foreign interference it is senseless to search abroad for levers of influencing our reality.

Russia is unable to replace the governments in Armenia or Artsakh, but it can put pressure on Armenia by implementing the plan for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem it finds preferable (the so-called "Lavrov plan", which, for its part, is a deteriorated version of the Madrid principles). This is the case, where all of us, having forgotten all disagreements, must resist this and help our government, enabling them to resist this too.

I do not know, whether there are any Armenians in the world, who would agree with this plan, which envisages ceding territories in exchange for the unclear promise of holding a referendum. However, even if such people do exist, they are badly mistaken, because this is a direct path to a full-scale war. The implementation of this "plan" will simply enable Azerbaijan to attack us from more advantageous positions.

I am sure that rejecting such a plan for settlement, it is possible to achieve the unity of not only Armenian citizens, but all Armenians and show it to the world. We are not arguing about whether the genocide of Armenians did take place or not and I think that precisely in the same manner, we can refuse to even discuss whether the "Lavrov plan" is acceptable to us or not. The sides and mediators should think about more realistic ideas.