Author: Eduard Nalbandian

 16:37, 30 August 2023

YEREVAN, AUGUST 30, ARMENPRESS. Officials from a number of regions of France have arrived in Armenia to express support and friendship to the people of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo said at a press conference in Goris.

The French delegation that escorted a humanitarian convoy for Nagorno-Karabakh to the Lachin Corridor on Wednesday includes representatives of various political parties who are all united by Armenia and Artsakh.

“We are here today because the Armenian organizations in France told us it was time to act, time to address the people of France. And there was especially a need to bring together the French local authorities in order to be able to send humanitarian aid to Artsakh. It was possible to collect ten cargo trucks of humanitarian aid thanks to the unity of local self-governing bodies, and the aid consists of food, baby food, milk powder, generators and solar panels. This will allow Artsakh to withstand,” the Mayor of Paris said.

She said that the aid is intended for six cities in Artsakh that have been under blockade since December 2022.

“Our message is clear and simple. First of all we are calling for respect of international law. The Armenians in Artsakh are under blockade involuntarily and this blockade is being perpetrated in violation of international law and the 9 November 2020 trilateral statement. What’s happening today in Artsakh is similar to genocide. The former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has described what’s happening in Artsakh as genocide, and four of the principles defining genocide have been acknowledged by the international community and experts. The advisor to the UN Secretary General responsible for genocide prevention is also using the same word to describe the situation in Artsakh. Genocide, ethnic cleansing by an authoritarian regime against a people that is simply asking for its rights to be respected, rights that any person or nation has. This is why we’ve come here to witness it and condemn it. And we are also asking the French President to use his position at the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution with the purpose of respecting the rights of the people of Artsakh,” Anne Hidalgo said.

 11:55, 1 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS. The intensity of Azerbaijani gunfire targeting Armenian border outposts near Sotk has decreased, the Armenian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

Two Armenian servicemen were killed and another was wounded Friday morning when Azerbaijani Armed Forces targeted Armenian border outposts near Sotk in a cross-border shelling.

Putin’s Russia scrambles to draft in mercenaries from Armenia and Kazakhstan to plug gaps in troop numbers fighting in Ukraine

Story by James Callery 

MoD said Russia has been appealing to citizen of neighbouring countries with recruitment adverts since June

Vladimir Putin is scrambling to draft mercenaries from Armenia and Kazakhstan to plug the gaps in troop numbers fighting in Ukraine.

Moscow has suffered heavy troop losses since the war in Ukraine began 18 months ago and the total number of Russian and Ukrainian troops killed or wounded is nearing 500,000, US officials said.

Russia has been appealing to citizen of neighbouring countries with recruitment adverts since June, the Ministry of Defence said in its latest Defence Intelligence update.

The MoD said that online adverts have been observed in Armenia and Kazakhstan offering 495,000 roubles (£4,079) in initial payments and salaries from 190,000 roubles (£1,566).

There have been recruitment efforts in Kazakhstan’s northern Qostanai region, appealing to the ethnic Russian population and since at least May, Russia has approached central Asian migrants to fight in Ukraine with promises of fast-track citizenship and salaries of up to £3,305, the update added.

The MoD said Uzbek migrant builders in Mariupol have reportedly had their passports confiscated upon arrival and been coerced to join the Russian military and noted that there are at least six million migrants from Central Asia in Russia, which the Kremlin probably see as potential recruits.

The MoD added: ‘Russia likely wishes to avoid further unpopular domestic mobilisation measures in the run up to the 2024 Presidential elections.

‘Exploiting foreign nationals allows the Kremlin to acquire additional personnel for its war effort in the face of mounting casualties.’

Some 280,000 people have signed up so far this year for professional service with Russia’s military, the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, former President Dmitry Medvedev, said today.

Visiting Russia’s Far East, Medvedev said he was meeting local officials to work on efforts to beef up the armed forces.

‘According to the Ministry of Defence, since January 1, about 280,000 people have been accepted into the ranks of the Armed Forces on a contract basis,’ including reservists, state news agency TASS quoted Medvedev as saying.

Last year, Russia announced a plan to expand its combat personnel more than 30 per cent to 1.5 million.

Some Russian lawmakers suggested Russia needs a professional army seven million strong to ensure the country’s security – a move that would require a huge budget allowance.

Putin ordered a ‘partial mobilisation’ of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, prompting hundreds of thousands of others to flee Russia to avoid being sent to fight. Putin has said there is no need for any further mobilisation.

In July, Russia’s lower house of parliament voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 years from 27, increasing the number of young men liable for a year of compulsory military service at any one time.

The new legislation, which comes into effect on January 1, means men will be required to carry out a year of military service, or equivalent training during higher education, between the ages of 18 and 30, rather than 18 and 27 as now.

The law also bans men from leaving Russia from the day they are summoned to a conscription office.

In April, legislation was passed allowing conscription summonses to be served online instead of in person.

Compulsory military service has long been a sensitive issue in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being handed conscription papers during the twice-yearly call-up periods.

Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were in theory exempted from a limited mobilisation last autumn, although some conscripts were sent to the front in error.

State media reported in July that Russia will keep compulsory military service for 18-year-olds, permanently increasing the number of young men liable to conscription, after lawmakers dropped a proposal not to start before the age of 21.

In June, the lower house of Russia’s parliament said it had voted to give its initial backing to legislation that will allow the Defence Ministry to sign contracts with suspected or convicted criminals to fight in Ukraine.

Under the proposed changes, a contract could be concluded with someone being investigated for committing a crime, who is having their case heard in court or after they have been convicted but before the verdict takes legal effect, according to the database of the State Duma, the lower house.

Since the spring, the Russian army has led a huge publicity campaign to recruit volunteers, with mass advertisements online and in Russian streets.

It has also sought to attract future soldiers by promising higher salaries.

The Russian military launched a video campaign to lure more professional soldiers to fight in Ukraine in April, which challenged those interested to show they are ‘a real man’ and swap what it cast as hum-drum civilian life for the battlefield.

The ad, set to stirring music, followed a report from British military intelligence and Russian media reports that suggested Moscow was seeking to recruit up to 400,000 professional soldiers – on a volunteer basis – to bolster its forces in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia launched a three-and-a-half hour drone attack on the southern parts of the Odesa region early on Sunday, hitting a Danube River port infrastructure and injuring at least two people, Kyiv said.

Ukraine’s air defence systems shot down 22 of the 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia launched on Odesa in the early hours of Sunday, Ukraine’s Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s South Military Command said on social media that at least two civilians were injured in the attack on what it said was the ‘civil infrastructure of the Danube’.

There were no immediate details on which port facility was hit. The military said a fire that resulted from the attack at the facility was quickly extinguished.

Some Ukrainian media reported blasts in the Reni port, one of the two major ports on the Danube that Ukraine operates.

The Russian army said today that it had hit the port of Reni with overnight drone strikes.

‘Today at night, the Russian army carried out a group drone strike on fuel storage facilities used to supply military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the port of Reni, in the Odesa region,’ the army said. ‘All designated targets were hit.’

Following the collapse in July of a United Nations-brokered deal allowing safe shipments from the Black Sea, Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukraine’s southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, home to ports and infrastructure that are vital for the shipment of grain.

The Danube has become Ukraine’s main route for exporting grain since the collapse of the deal.

Last month, the first civilian cargo ship sailing through the Black Sea from Ukraine arrived in Istanbul in defiance of the Russian blockade.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that two more vessels had passed through the country’s ‘temporary Black Sea grain corridor’.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with Putin, hoping to persuade the Russian leader to rejoin the Black Sea grain deal.

The meeting in Sochi on Russia’s southern coast comes after weeks of speculation about when and where the two leaders might meet.

Erdogan previously said that Putin would travel to Turkey in August.

The Kremlin refused to renew the grain agreement six weeks ago.

The deal – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 – had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.

However, Russia pulled out after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertiliser hadn’t been honoured.

Moscow complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.

Zelensky and his French counterpart today discussed the ‘functioning’ of a sea corridor set up by Kyiv for safe navigation of ships after Moscow exited the grain deal.

They also spoke about enhancing the security of the Odesa region, Zelensky said on social media after the phone call.

 11:48, 2 September 2023

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. The Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Foreign Ministry released a statement on September 2 on the occasion of the 32nd Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic of Artsakh.

Below is the full statement.

“32 years ago, on September 2, 1991, a joint session of the Councils of People’s Deputies of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and the Shahumyan region proclaimed the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.
 
Beginning from the day of illegal subjugation of Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan on 5 July, 2021 and throughout its stay within the Azerbaijan SSR, the policy of apartheid and discrimination intensified in Nagorno Karabakh, an atmosphere of hatred and intolerance was created towards the indigenous Armenian people, resulting in armed clashes, human losses and mass deportation of the civilian population of Armenian villages.
 
To prevent the disastrous course of events, the people of Nagorno Karabakh exercised its right enshrined in the USSR Constitution and laws in force, specifically, the provision of the Law of the USSR Supreme Soviet “On the secession of the Union Republics from the USSR” dated April 3, 1990, according to which “the peoples of the autonomous republics and autonomous formations retain the right to independently resolve the issue of staying in the USSR or in the seceding union republic, as well as to raise the issue of their state-legal status”.
 
The independence of Nagorno Karabakh was reaffirmed by the results of the nationwide referendum held on December 10, 1991 and the Declaration of Independence adopted on January 6, 1992 at the first session of the NKR Supreme Council.
 
Thirty years later, Azerbaijan occupied a significant part of the territory of the Republic of Artsakh as a result of a large-scale war it had unleashed. Aiming to achieve the final de-Armenization of Artsakh, ignoring the provisions of the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020, the legally binding decisions of the International Court of Justice and the ECHR, as well as numerous calls by the international community, Azerbaijan has been keeping the 120-thousand population of Artsakh under total siege for about 9 months since December 2022, depriving it of all fundamental rights and freedoms, creating unbearable living conditions and subjecting it to starvation.
 
Considering the above-mentioned facts, as well as the constant threats against the people of Artsakh and calls for their reprisals by the authorities of Azerbaijan, the international recognition of the Republic of Artsakh can become one of the basic and important guarantees of preventing the genocidal policy against the people of Artsakh.
 
Expressing our gratitude to all the Armenian sons, who fought for the right to self-determination and freedom of the people of Artsakh, and bowing to the memory of our heroes martyred in the three Artsakh wars, we reiterate that Artsakh was and remains the core of the Pan-Armenian unity, continuing the path it has chosen and fighting for our dignity.
 
We call upon all the international actors involved in the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement process to take immediate and efficient steps to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh and deportation of its indigenous people from the homeland.”

 12:33,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 26, ARMENPRESS. The Danish government on Friday said it will propose a law that would make it illegal to desecrate any holy book in Denmark, where a recent after a series of burnings of the Quran led to uproar in Muslim countries, AP reports. 

The Danish government seeks to extend Denmark’s existing ban on burning foreign flags by also “prohibiting improper treatment of objects of significant religious significance to a religious community,” Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said. 

“The bill will make it punishable, for example, to burn the Quran or the Bible in public. It will only aim at actions in a public place or with the intention of spreading in a wider circle,” Hummelgaard said. He said such acts would be punishable by fines or up to two years in prison.

Hummelgaard told a news conference that the recent protests were “senseless taunts that have no other purpose than to create discord and hatred.”

Denmark’s government has repeatedly distanced itself from the desecrations, but has insisted that freedom of _expression_ is one of the most important values in Danish society. It said that would not be affected by the proposed law.

Freedom of _expression_ is “a cornerstone of Danish democracy, and the freedom to express oneself is a central value in Danish society,” Hummelgaard said. The proposal is “a targeted intervention which does not change the fact that freedom of _expression_ must have a very broad framework in Denmark,” he said.

 15:08,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 24, ARMENPRESS. The Government of Armenia will provide 4 billion drams to Nagorno-Karabakh as an interstate loan for additional funding of the mitigation of social tension in the post-war period.

The decision was approved at the August 24 Cabinet meeting.

 14:08,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 23, ARMENPRESS. On August 23, the Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan received the newly appointed Ambassador of France Olivier Decottignies.

Alen Simonyan congratulated the Ambassador on assuming office and expressed conviction that the latter will make maximum efforts to deepen the relations between the two countries, the parliament’s press service said in a readout.

The Speaker said that the Ambassador’s very active start of activities confirms that France is a great friend to Armenia. In response, the Ambassador mentioned that his first visit as ambassador was to Syunik province, which contains an important message. Simonyan reaffirmed that France is a reliable partner for Armenia today.

The active cooperation between the Armenian and French parliaments and Simonyan’s Paris visit on July 10-13 were discussed at the meeting.

They also discussed details on the security situation in the region and exchanged opinions on the steps to overcome the Lachin Corridor crisis.

Both sides expressed willingness to continue further cooperation.