Category: 2020

                                        Friday, 
Scores Arrested After Armenian-Azeri Violence In Moscow
        • Aza Babayan
Russia -- The Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya) soldiers and police officers 
patrol in downtown Moscow on June 8, 2020.
Police in Moscow made at least 25 arrests on Friday following overnight violent 
attacks involving local Armenians and Azerbaijanis which resulted from last 
week’s deadly fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The violence erupted late on Thursday, with various groups of men reportedly 
attacking other people and businesses on ethnic grounds.
An amateur video posted on the Internet showed several men smashing a car with 
Armenian license plates and beating up its driver. Another footage showed other 
violent youths assaulting an elderly man and demanding that he name the country 
which they believe should control Nagorno-Karabakh.
A Russian-Armenian activist, David Tonoyan, reported at least five attacks on 
Armenians which he said mostly occurred in Moscow’s southern suburbs. One 
Armenian was stabbed and hospitalized as a result, he said, adding that the 
Russian police beefed up security in those areas.
“According to our information, only Azerbaijanis have been arrested so far,” 
Tonoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
The “Moskovsky Komsomolets” daily reported that an Azerbaijani man was badly 
beaten by a group of Armenians in one of those suburbs, Maryino. The Union of 
Azerbaijanis of Russia alleged an Armenian attack on an Azerbaijani-owned 
restaurant in the Russian capital.
Russia - Police arrest participants of clashes between Azeris and Armenians in 
Moscow, .
The Moscow police department reported, meanwhile, that it arrested more than 25 
people on suspicion of involvement in what it described as “a number of conflict 
situations between citizens” in Maryino. It was careful not to mention their 
nationality or ethnicity.
In a statement, the department said it is continuing to investigate the 
incidents and warned of tough action against more “manifestations of collective 
violation of the public order.”
Russia’s human rights ombudsperson, Tatyana Moskalkova, expressed serious 
concern over the “disturbances between representatives of the Armenian and 
Azerbaijani peoples.” She said ethnically motivated violence is “unacceptable in 
any civilized society.”
The violent incidents came hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov 
met with leaders of Russia’s sizable Armenian and Azerbaijani communities to 
discuss ways of maintaining what his press office called “interethnic peace and 
accord” in the country. Ara Abramian, the pro-Kremlin chairman of the Union of 
Armenians of Russia, said Lavrov’s meeting with him and Azerbaijani-born 
businessman God Nisanov took place at his initiative.
Nisanov is the main owner of Moscow’s largest wholesale food market which 
refused to sell apricots imported from Armenia following the July 12 outbreak of 
the hostilities on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The move sparked an outcry 
from many Moscow Armenians who queued up to buy those apricots in a show of 
support for Armenia.
RUSSIA -- Ara Abramian (C), President of the Union of Armenians of Russia, 
attends a meeting of the presidential Council for Interethnic Relations in 
Moscow, September 14, 2018
It emerged on Thursday that another hypermarket located just outside of Moscow 
has also stopped selling Armenian agricultural products, beverages and prepared 
foodstuffs. The Tvoy Dom trading center is owned by Aras Agalarov, an 
Azerbaijani billionaire whose son Emin used to be married to one of Azerbaijani 
President Ilham Aliyev’s daughters.
Violent clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijanis have also been reported in 
several major European capitals and Los Angeles. In what may have been a related 
development, a car belonging to the Armenian Embassy in Germany was set on fire 
and burned down on Thursday.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that some of its diplomats working 
abroad have received threats. It did not elaborate.
In a statement, the ministry accused the Azerbaijani authorities of inciting the 
violence. It also urged Armenian nationals living abroad and Diaspora Armenians 
not to “succumb to any provocation.”
U.S. House Approves More Funding For Mine Clearance In Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh - A representative of the HALO Trust briefs U.S. congressman 
David Valadao (C) on its demining activities in Karabakh, 18Sep2017. (Photo by 
the Amenian National Committee of America.)
The U.S. House of Representatives approved late on Thursday $1.4 million in 
fresh U.S. funding for humanitarian demining operations in Nagorno-Karabakh 
carried out by a British charity.
The HALO Trust has cleared tens of thousands of anti-personnel and anti-tank 
landmines, mostly left over from the 1991-1994 Armenian-Azerbaijani war, since 
it began its work in Karabakh in 2001. The U.S. Congress has financed the effort 
as part of its direct humanitarian assistance to the Armenian-populated 
territory allocated over strong Azerbaijani objectives.
The current U.S. administration has sought to end that assistance. An amendment 
to a House bill on U.S. foreign aid in the fiscal year 2021 requires it continue 
funding the demining program in Karabakh.
The amendment was drafted by three pro-Armenian members of the House. One of 
them, Jackie Speier, argued that Karabakh has one of the highest per capita mine 
accident rates in the world. More than 400 of its residents have been killed 
there by landmines since 1994.
The measure was also co-sponsored by more than 30 other lawmakers, virtually all 
of them Democrats. Armenian-American advocacy groups lobbied hard for its 
passage.
“Today’s vote represents a powerful rebuke to the Azerbaijani government-driven, 
State Department-supported effort to end Artsakh’s demining program despite its 
remarkable record of having removed tens of thousands of landmines and saving 
countless lives,” said the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
The Armenian Assembly of America also hailed the amendment. “For a relatively 
small investment, the United States can make a significant difference for the 
people of Nagorno-Karabakh, especially for the children,” it said in a statement.
The Assembly statement quoted Kristen Stevens, a representative of The HALO 
Trust, as saying: “We are overjoyed to see the House of Representatives include 
funding in the State and Foreign Operations bill for humanitarian demining in 
Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The aid allocation also needs to be backed by the U.S. Senate. The ANCA said it 
is already “working with Senate leaders” to include the funding in their version 
of the foreign bill.
Lawmaker Leaves Tsarukian’s Party
        • Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia -- Parliament deputy Sergey Bagratian speaks to RFE/RL, Yerevan, January 
26, 2020.
A parliament deputy from Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) has 
left the country’s largest parliamentary opposition force after being questioned 
in an ongoing criminal investigation.
The lawmaker, Sergey Bagratian, formally notified parliament speaker Ararat 
Mirzoyan about his decision to quit the BHK in a letter revealed on Thursday. 
Bagratian is understood to have given no reason for the move. He could not be 
reached for comment on Friday.
Some Armenian media outlets speculated that Bagratian defected from the BHK to 
avoid prosecution on corruption charges. They claimed that the charges stem from 
financial abuses allegedly committed in Armenia’s southeastern Vayots Dzor when 
it was governed by Bagratian from 2010-2012.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor-General, Arevik Khachatrian, said 
on Friday that Bagratian was questioned as a witness in a criminal case opened 
recently. She refused to give any details of the probe.
A senior BHK parliamentarian, Naira Zohrabian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service 
that Bagratian’s decision took her and her colleagues by surprise.
“Mr. Bagratian had no differences with the leader or any other member of our 
parliamentary faction,” she said. “We always had very active, businesslike and 
friendly relations with Sergey Bagratian.”
Zohrabian said that Bagratian has not answered phone calls from other BHK 
members or communicated with them otherwise for the past month. “We have zero 
information about why Mr. Bagratian left the faction,” she stressed.
Armenia -- Gagik Tsarukian gives a speech at the parliament ahead of a vote that 
stripped him of immunity from prosecution as an MP, June 16, 2020.
Bagratian, 57, stopped making public statements shortly after the Armenian 
parliament allowed law-enforcement authorities on June 15 to arrest and 
prosecute Tsarukian on vote buying charges which the BHK leader rejects as 
politically motivated.
The BHK claims that Pashinian ordered the National Security Service (NSS) to 
“fabricate” the charges in response to Tsarukian’s June 5 calls for the Armenian 
government’s resignation. It also also says in recent weeks the NSS and police 
have rounded up scores of BHK activists in a bid to ratchet up the pressure on 
Tsarukian. Pashinian and his allies deny a politically motivated crackdown on 
the party.
Bagratian’s exit reduced to 24 the number of parliament seats held by the BHK. 
The latter continues to have the second largest group in the 132-member National 
Assembly controlled by Pashinian’s My Step bloc.
Armenian, Russian Troops Train For Drone Warfare
Armenia -- Armenian and Russian military officers pose for a photograph at the 
start of a joint air-defense exercise, .
Armenian and Russian troops are practicing how to deal with enemy military 
drones during a joint air-defense exercise that began in Armenia on Thursday.
According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, the command-and-staff exercise 
involves the commanders of a Russian-Armenian air-defense system and the 
Armenian army’s separate anti-aircraft units as well as air force officers from 
the two states.
“During the exercise they will develop new ways of fighting against UAVs 
(unmanned aerial vehicles) for the purpose of improving the counter-drone 
system,” the ministry said in a statement. They are simulating various 
“scenarios” of drone warfare, it said.
The joint air-defense system was set up in the late 1990s and upgraded by a 
Russian-Armenian treaty signed in 2015. It includes elements of a Russian 
military base stationed in Armenia.
The Defense Ministry statement also said that participants of the drill are 
looking into last week’s deadly clashes on Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan 
during which both sides used reconnaissance and attack drones. “The Armenian 
side is analyzing the enemy’s tactics and actions of its air-defense 
detachments,” it added.
Armenia -- Armenian officers demonstrate an Israeli-made "combat" drone 
SkyStriker which they say was intercepted during fighting with Azerbaijani 
forces, .
The Armenian military claims to have shot down or intercepted 13 Azerbaijani 
drones during the hostilities that broke out at a border section on July 12 and 
left at least 17 soldiers from both sides dead. It demonstrated on Tuesday what 
it described as fragments of some of those Israeli-made UAVs.
A military spokesman, Artsrun Hovannisian, publicized on Friday a photograph of 
two Armenian officers standing next to a SkyStriker “suicide” drone manufactured 
by the Israeli company Elbit Systems. Hovannisian said earlier that the largely 
intact drone was brought down by an Armenian electronic warfare system.
The Armenian military also says that it used for the first time domestically 
manufactured attack drones during last week’s hostilities. It claims that they 
destroyed at least one Azerbaijani tank.
Baku has dismissed these claims. It claims, for its part, that Azerbaijani 
forces shot down two Armenian drones. The Armenian side denies that.
Russia helped to largely stop the fighting on July 16. The Foreign Ministry in 
Moscow said on Thursday that Russia’s Defense Ministry is also involved in 
efforts to de-escalate the situation along the border between Armenia’s Tavush 
province and the Tovuz district in Azerbaijan.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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