Will Armenia survive Prime Minister Pashinyan?

In 2024 Armenians and their country, Armenia, face existential annihilation, if neighbouring Azerbaijan fulfils its ambition to turn Armenia into "West Azerbaijan," and their Prime Minister (pictured right) continues to betray them. US-NATO countries have supplied arms, not to assist the Armenian army with defending the country, but to help the police suppress popular revolt. [1] Update 9 July: This is a battle against the evil within the Pashinyan government - Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan

 

An astounding country-wide foot-march to the capital, Yeraven, of tens of thousands of Armenians began in early May 2024, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, and has culminated in between 20 and 30,000 Armenians (in a total population of less than 3m) continuously demonstrating outside Armenia’s parliament. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan is prepared to stand for prime minister, and he has many supporters. [2] Armenians bitterly resent Prime Minister Pashinyan as a US-NATO quisling who seems to be colluding with Azerbaijan,  in its stated goal to make Armenia into "West Azerbaijan." Regime-loyal police have reacted repressively towards the crowd and to sympathetic parliamentarians.

Relations with Russia:

Armenia was, until recently, part of a Russian-Eurasian mutual protection group called the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).[3] US-EU-leaning Prime Minister, Nicol Pashinyan, pulled out of the group.  

Pashinyan had a long reputation of surviving as a professional ‘revolutionary.’ In a situation reminiscent of Ukraine’s Euromaidan, he eventually came to power after he led a US and EU-backed colour revolution where rioters obtained the resignation of three-time prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan, who had a decades-long record of defending Nagorno-Karabakh (“Artsakh”), a major region of Armenia, long coveted by Azerbaijan.[4] Ironically, in May-June 2024, Pashinyan himself required military protection to extract him from his parliamentary offices when massive crowds of Armenians, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, surrounded them, demanding his resignation. [5]

Although Armenians are known world-wide as victims of an infamous massacre in 1915, and their struggle to defend territory from their Azerbaijan neighbours in 2020 received global attention, it seems since then that they have been left to struggle alone, with little help or attention. Let’s look at this situation along geopolitical fault-lines in a post-Soviet globalising world, where the shadows of oligarchs, corporations, and governments merge. 

When and how did Armenia and Azerbaijan come about?

The modern states of Armenia and Azerbaijan evolved from ethnic-minority communities administered as ‘millets’ under the ethnic-Turkic-dominated Ottoman Empire, in a system that allowed a degree of self-government by the respective religious institutions of such minorities, including Armenians, Jews, and Greeks. Ethnically-differentiated communities were dotted all over the empire and had more or less impressive histories where they had occupied independent territories. Armenia was an identifiable client kingdom under the Roman Empire but, at the time of the Ottoman Empire, Turkic people dominated.

During WW1, Turks became suspicious that the Armenian Christians would side with largely Christian Europe and Russia against them in the first world war. From 1915-1916, hundreds of thousands of Armenians – some estimate 1.5 million Armenians – died under orders instigated by Turkish officials.  They were interned in concentration camps where they were then massacred, or deported to starve. The Turks admit to the scale of the killings, but tend to see this as an act of war.

After the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was divided up, partly to accommodate different ethnicities in specific territories. The Republic of Armenia was thus drawn up in 1919 as a geographic entity according to a perception of Armenian demographic distribution, next door to Turkic Azerbaijan, but with a political island (or oblast) inside Azerbaijan, known as Nagorno-Karabakh. There were also several Azerbaijani villages just inside Armenia’s border.  

Azerbaijanis or ‘Azeris’ are Turkic peoples and culturally Muslim, and their culture and ethnicity had dominated in the Ottoman Empire.  They shared with Turkey a resentment of the loss of territory and power that came with the breaking up of the empire.

With the rise of the USSR, Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s borders changed somewhat again, but the Soviets managed the Armenian-Azeri friction well.  As the Soviet Union declined, however, and political dynamics changed, Azerbaijan sought more of its neighbour’s territory.

Did any specific events spark off Ngorno-Karabakh’s 1992 bid for total independence from Azerbaijan?

The mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast had been a Soviet creation [5] and it relied on the Soviets for defence. Mountain fighting between Azeris and Armenians had begun from 1988 as the Soviet Union declined, and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 left it politically vulnerable. The Armenians declared it a republic in 1992, the Artsakh Republic. It was never recognised internationally, but it lasted a total of 28 years, from 1992 until September 2023, when Azerbaijan militarily defeated its defenders.  We could call the Azerbaijanis the aggressors simply because Armenia was formally entitled to Nagorno-Karabakh under Soviet law, from 1923.

Turkey and Azerbaijan are geographically only separated by Armenia. Azerbaijan’s geographical access to Caspian Sea oil and gas make it a very important friend for Turkey. They share similar ethnicities and both have gained wealth and power whilst Armenia’s wealth has declined, in part due to limited natural assets, to its land-locked quality, to the fall of the Soviet Empire, and in part due to natural disasters. Nagorno-Karabakh was likely its most prosperous region, thanks to valuable gold reserves and other semi-precious metals.

Did Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan intend to lose Ngorno-Karabakh or was this an accident, and does it matter?

Prime Minister Pashinyan’s anti-Russian gestures seem to have cost Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Russia’s previously guaranteed defence, and those anti-Russian gestures resulted largely from Pashinyan’s pro-Western stance. Armenia has paid an horrific price. It is hard to understand Pashinyan’s behaviour on the face of things, so people suspect him of having secret motives.  One could be that he was supported by foreign NGOs in exchange for promising to distance Armenia from Russia and bring it closer to the west, as has happened with Ukraine, and has been attempted in Georgia twice. (See https://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/588.) Pashinyan came to power after a color revolution removed Serzh Sargsyan, a three-term prime minister, who hailed back to Soviet Armenia, and who valued and nurtured the Russian defence alliance. [7] Along the rim of the old USSR, numerous countries have recently sought to join NATO and the EU, which they might not have done if their media had not been bought up by the west, and if they had not been courted via western NGOs, corporations, oligarchs and lending institutions, which encouraged them to privatise their land and economies.

Who could have benefited from Pashinyan ceding Nagorno-Karabakh?

Azerbaijan, obviously. And the west, seeking to replace eastern influence, by weakening Armenian grassroots mobilization around their ethnic and territorial interests, and the country’s ties to Russia. Such weakening would make it easier to position themselves with their policies in Armenia, ready to interfere with events in the Caspian, notably Russia-Eastern plans to develop new oil and general trade corridors between Russia via Azerbaijan, Iran, and Mumbai, known as INSTC. INSTC stands for, “Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia-Iran-India-International North-South Transport Corridor,” for which an eastern extension from Russia to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, and India is being added. [8] Because of Pashinyan’s actions, Armenia is no longer a part of the INSTC.

It is sad that Armenia seems to have missed out on a much-needed economic association with the INSTC. Nagorno-Karabakh becoming Azerbaijanian, and Armenia becoming a western-leaning, anti-Russian state, may have simplified Russia’s cooperation with Azerbaijan and Turkey in this new oil and general trade corridor from Russia to Mumbai, via Azerbijan and Iran.

We should also consider the often opaque influence of corporate interests in international affairs. For instance, influential US elites were major investors in the Anglo-Asian Mining agreement that hinged on Azerbaijan prevailing in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This 1997 deal with Azerbaijan aimed to exploit significant gold-mining assets in the region. And that was just one of the many lucrative mineral extraction operations under Armenian control that were suddenly up for grabs amid the political upheaval.

This remote, sparsely populated area with a history of post-Soviet corruption has long attracted the attention of oligarchs and corporate interests from both the East and the West, including members of Azerbaijan's ruling royal family. The hidden financial stakes in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute point to how geopolitical conflicts can become entangled with shadowy corporate agendas, beyond the official narratives of ethnic tensions or ideological rivalries.

 

Why isn’t anyone helping Armenia fight for Ngorno-Karabakh in 2024?

It looks like the current situation, which really upsets most Armenians, suits all the major international players. From 2002 to 2020, the US Departments of State and Defense) reported providing about $164 million for security assistance to the government of Azerbaijan, and they have continued to do so. Israel is said to supply 70% of Azerbaijan’s arms – and Azerbaijan supplies Israel with petroleum in exchange. Russia did have an obligation to defend Nagorno-Karabakh as an Armenian territory, but Pashinyan’s actions and policies seemingly relieve it of those obligations and prevent it from acting to help defend Armenia, when it is already busy with Ukraine. On 17 April 2024, Moscow confirmed Russian peacekeeper withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that Armenia had withdrawn from the agreement. On 6 July 2024, however, Russia-aligned Kazakastan offered to help negotiate peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. [9]

What more could go wrong?

PM Pashinyan is giving away more territory to Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan is talking about making Armenia into ‘Western Azerbaijan.’ 

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Colour Revolution in Presence of Multiple Foreign-funded NGOs

What circumstances led up to the colour revolution in Armenia that brought long-time professional ‘revolutionary’ Prime Minister Pashinyan into power and caused the loss Nagorno-Karabakh?

Through investigating the overall context prior to the outing of three-time prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan who had a lengthy history of defending Nagorno-Karabakh since 1989, [10] it looks like a stack of foreign-and corporate-backed Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), also known as Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), with political agendas and patrons, established themselves when a series of catastrophes befell Armenia, from 1988. [11]

The first catastrophe was the terrible 1988 earthquake in Armenia that destroyed one third of industrial capacity and closed-down the only nuclear power-plant for years. 1988 was also the year that Azerbaijani fighters began to fight Armenia for Nagorno-Karabakh. The next year, 1990, Azerbaijan cut off its gas supply to Armenia. And then, the next year, 1991, the Soviet Union fell. In 1992, Armenians tried to reassert their old soviet oblast territory of Nagorno-Karabakh by declaring it the Artsakh Republic, against continuing territorial challenges from Azerbaijan.

Amidst this chaos and local poverty, NGOs with foreign funding and political and economic agendas of marketisation,[12] dug themselves into a position to influence the restructuring, mostly by privatisation and debt, of the economy, and to help their favourites into government. This is the problem with non-local organisations gaining importance in any country.

Typically, foreign-funded NGOs are used to help finance political opportunists, recraft government, laws, and economic structure, through privatisation and public debt, all under the guise of benign ‘development projects.’ They are often linked to development banks, serving as vehicles to advance specific geopolitical agendas. A telltale sign of their enracination in a region is the subsequent emergence of ‘colour revolutions’ and conflicts, and this is certainly the case here and in a number countries on the periphery of the old Soviet Union. Even in peripheral countries that have not had obvious colour revolutions, local press-ownership and diversity have declined, and new policies bearing US hallmarks, like a transgender focus, have suddenly appeared where no such priority previously existed. It is noteworthy that so many have joined NATO and some that were neutral, like Finland and Sweden, have adopted defensive NATO-aligned policies towards Russia. The Finns actually collected enough signatures to have a referendum on aligning with NATO, but their leaders went ahead without allowing them to vote on it.

Masquerading as charitable and helpful institutions, such NGOs draw in sincere volunteers and marshal grateful communities. They may actually carry out genuinely helpful emergency and support activities, but the giveaway is their political and values rhetoric (on their websites, for instance) and how much they have to do with policy formation. Genuine NGOs are always at risk of being taken over by political and corporate professionals.

Laws favour NGOs in Armenia

In contrast to new laws in Georgia in 2024 (where NGOs almost overturned the Government there, trying to stop the legislation), there are no laws restraining foreign funding of NGOs in Armenia. Indeed a 2017 Law of the Republic of Armenia on Non-Governmental Organizations (which closely preceded the Armenian ‘velvet revolution’ of 2018, after which Pashinyan gained power) seems to give them both government support and excessive freedom of association, whilst Article 9.4 actually “[Prohibits] ‘bodies of public administration and local self-government’ from interfer[ing] with or obstructing the lawful activities of the Organization.” [13]

See illustration of Article 9. 1-4.

 

 

Soros Open Society Foundations, Pashinyan, Nagorno-Karabakh – Any relationship?

Armenians have accused George Soros’s Open Society Foundations of undermining their democratic process through political interference.  George Soros’s Open Society Foundations are world-famous - or infamous - for funding, training, and organising, locals to fulfill particular politico-economic objectives. The theory is that Soros-funded NGOs often act like a kind of private-public partnership with the US and European governments and major development banks and corporations, appearing with a friendly human-rights and progressive face, to encourage local people to trust them, and to trust political actors they help put in as leaders. The Soros foundations are not the only ones that do this, but they are noticeably successful. One motive could be an interest in exploiting currency exchange differences that occur with governments and economies in turmoil. See, for instance, Giancarlo Corsetti, “Does One Soros Make a Difference? A Theory of Currency Crises with Large and Small Traders.” [14] Another motive is creating an interface for corporate and oligarchal land acquisition, which is rife along the perimeters of the old Soviet Union.

In Armenia, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations have been accused of supporting Pashinyan and the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. With regard to George Soros’s foundations (Open Society Foundations - OSF), it was reported in (US-Congress/CIA funded) Radio Liberty press in 2020 that “Over the past two decades OSF has provided a total of about $53 million in grants to Armenian non-governmental organizations and individuals. They have been spent on hundreds of projects implemented in a wide range of areas, including education, human rights, judicial reforms [i.e. changing Armenia’s laws] and media.” See the full article, where local Armenian activists pointed to wealthy Soros-funded organisations unfairly influencing Armenian politics. The OSF spokesperson actually admits to the organisation supporting changes to the law and government, whilst suggesting that it should not be criticised for this.

 

“Soros Foundation In Armenia Decries ‘Smear Campaign’

The Armenian branch of U.S. billionaire George Soros's Open Society Foundations (0SF) on Wednesday accused radical anti-government forces of conducting an "unprecedented" smear campaign against it and its local partners [15]

Here’s another article from the same US-funded press, with the same OSF spokesperson defending its funding of a violent group defending OSF preferred government.

"Youth Activists Acquitted Over 2019 Attack On Government Critic

A court in Yerevan has acquitted Western-funded youth activists who assaulted a blogger highly critical of the Armenian government more than three years ago." [16]

Pro-Western Pashinyan, Russian Defense, Nagorno-Karabakh loss

Armenia was, until recently, part of a Russian-Eurasian mutual protection group called Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), [17] but it pulled out of this and acquired its US-EU-leaning Prime Minister, Nicol Pashinyan.  Pashinyan, as mentioned, had a decades-long reputation of surviving as a professional ‘revolutionary’ and eventually came to power after heading a US and EU backed colour revolution where rioters forced out thrice-elected Prime Minister, Serzh Sargsyan, a long-time supporter of Nagorno-Karabakh. US-NATO, of course, deny such political interference by USAID. [18] Ironically, in May-June 2024, Pashinyan himself required military protection to extract him from his parliamentary offices when a huge proportion of Armenia’s small population, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, surrounded them, demanding his resignation.

Under PM Pashinyan (18 May 2018-) Armenia has diminished political ties with Russia and increased political ties with US-NATO-Europe. In a manner not calculated to endear themselves to Russia, in October 2023 Armenia ratified the Rome Treaty with the ICC, meaning that they agreed to arrest Russian President Putin (for alleged crimes against Ukraine) if he stepped on their soil. On 23 October 2023, Armenia signed a defence cooperation agreement with France that includes arms sales, and on 25 October 2023, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Pashinyan said that he no longer saw any benefits in maintaining Russian military bases in Armenia.  In May 2024 the Armenian PM skipped the meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States(CIS)  and, prior to that, meetings of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). [19] He formally froze Armenia’s participation with CSTO in February 2024, and halted financial contributions in May 2024, accusing Russia of failing to help defend Armenians in Nagorno-Karaback and accusing fellow-member Azerbaijan of hostile intentions towards Armenia, contrary to peace agreements brokered by Russia in 2020. [20] In addition, two pro-Russian journalists were imprisoned in Armenia.

The US view, as given by the Atlantic Council, [21] for instance, is that Azerbaijan invading Armenian territory in September 2022 demonstrated Russia’s failure to support Armenia. There is no mention of the coup that removed long-time Russia-aligned defender of Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan in 2018. The Atlantic Council publication adds that, as the Ukrainian war continued, Russia stopped supplying Armenia with weapons, and implies that Armenia stopped participating in CSTO drills because of that. It says that Russia’s view was that Armenia’s behaviour showed unfriendliness to Russia, citing Armenian-US joint military exercises, a ‘humanitarian visit’ to Ukraine by Pashinyan’s wife, and the ratification of the ICC’s Rome Statute. On 8 September 2023, Russia had summoned the Armenian ambassador to Russia and noted these unfriendly moves. [22]

With friends like this …

Since Azerbaijan took Armenia’s Nagorno-Karabakh (geographically located within Azerbaijan), Pashinyan has actually been giving back Azerbaijani territory geographically located within Armenia, claiming it is no longer defensible and that he wants to sign a lasting peace deal with Baku after decades of conflict following the fall of the Soviet Union, in which over 30,000 people lost their lives. [23]

The areas returned include ‘Armenia’s northeastern Tavush Province and ‘four abandoned border villages that Armenia has controlled since the early 1990s’ and ‘that used to be part of Azerbaijan’s northwestern Qazax district.’ [24] PM Pashinyan met with the inhabitants of three of the villages to discuss these plans two days before signing the agreement, which he said was the only way to promote lasting peace. Armenian groups argue, understandably, that Pashinyan should at least have got Azerbaijan to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh, before discussing any transferring of these villages to Azerbaijan. The villages were on the road to Georgia, which is essential for trade, but Pashinyan says new sections of the road can be built.

But the taking of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023 (after a series of battles over 2020-2022) was a lot more significant than the ownership of some abandoned villages – although the important road to Georgia ran past those villages. Nagorno-Karabakh is of immense strategic territorial and economic importance to Armenia.  This former Soviet Armenian Oblast had a population of about 150,000 Armenians, although, as we know, it was located well-within Azerbaijan.  Nearly all the Armenian inhabitants of this mountainous area fled to escape violence as Azerbaijan took their land. 

Goldmines in Nagorno-Karabakh

How and who might benefit from Pashinyan’s blatant betrayal of Armenia in alienating Russia and giving up Nagorno Karabakh? Apart from possible western political objectives to establish more footings in this region, what about the corporate interests? Obviously, arms sales are important to multiple actors, including the US and Israel, (See note 9) but what about the gold?

Nagorno-Karabakh has important quantities of gold and semi-precious metals. Copper and gold-mining have been increasing there, since 2002.  Fortunes are involved. It turns out that Azerbaijan had assumed the authority to sign over an important gold mine to Asian-Anglo Mining as far back as 1997, and Anglo-Asian Mining was celebrating Armenia’s loss to Azerbaijan of relevant parts of Nagorno-Karabakh already in 2021.

“Anglo-Asian Mining [a small, London-listed company ] had been waiting for decades. Since 1997, the company has held the rights, granted by Azerbaijan, to three gold deposits beyond its reach, in territories controlled by Armenians. In an October 27 press release it announced that it was looking forward to tapping its 300-square-kilometer Vejnali contract area, which had just been retaken by Azerbaijani troops: “Once secure, the company plans to immediately start work.” After the fighting ended, some two weeks later, Armenian troops handed back more gold-mining areas, including the Kelbajar region, home to one of the most productive gold mines in the Caucasus.” [25]

Whilst the petroleum resources of Azerbaijan and its strategic location on the Caspian Sea, are of obvious significance in international power-plays in the region, gold mines in Nagorno-Karabakh seem to be surprisingly important in its political takeover. Another reason for international discretion on Armenia’s plight could be powerful peoples’ undeclared stakes in gold for international theft and money-laundering.  (Think of Nazi gold. Think of Libya’s vanished gold stocks.) Mining and investment in Azerbaijan are characteristically murky.  Notoriously, the Azerbaijani political family seems to have used Nagorno-Karabakh mines for money laundering via the family bank.

Azerbaijan’s gold industry, for its part, has been tarnished by investigative reports showing how, in other mining ventures, President Ilham Aliyev’s daughters Arzu and Leyla Aliyeva extracted millions of dollars in profits, stashed them offshore, and then left rural mining communities, in the words of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, “high and dry.” […]

[…] the Aliyev family casts a long shadow over any lucrative industry in Azerbaijan.

The same year the first daughters were purportedly leaving hundreds of Azerbaijani miners high and dry, Anglo-Asian Mining received a $3 million credit line from Baku-based Pasha Bank. The bank lists the Aliyeva sisters and their maternal grandfather as its ultimate beneficial owners.

[…] in a 1994 ceasefire that largely held until late 2020. Nagorno-Karabakh had declared itself independent and become an unrecognized satellite of impoverished Armenia.

Only three years after the ceasefire, a Delaware-registered company, R.V. Investment Group Services, signed an agreement with Baku for exclusive rights to six mines, three of them on territories under Armenia’s de facto control.

The man who signed that agreement is Reza Vaziri, a former official in Iran’s pre-revolutionary government and today the president, CEO, and largest known shareholder in Anglo-Asian Mining, which operates exclusively in Azerbaijan. [25]   

With the changing of regimes, a lot of gold mining has been declared illegal, leaving the mines up for grabs. Mining rights in Nagorno-Karabakh are a political football, and Azerbaijan has used the territorial conflict there to introduce new companies whilst declaring the ones established under Armenian control to be illegal. It is likely that some were, since mining transparency was not big under Armenian control either. In fact, there is a list as long as your arm of past and present powerful international investors from many different countries in Nagorno-Karabakh goldmines! [26]

Mining and war, illegal weapons, human trafficking, and drug-smuggling, provide so many opportunities for money laundering and profiteering, on international and local levels. All of these can take place largely unobserved in post-Soviet, rugged, mountainous, sparsely populated Nagorno Karabakh, which has three different international borders.[27]

Country-wide march led by Archbishop Galstanyan against PM Pashinyan

It seems that most Armenians think that Pashinyan should be removed from office because of these changes to nationality and territory. Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 54% of the vote in the June 2021 parliamentary elections, but in the September 2023 municipal elections, it lost 33 of 65 seats “on the Yerevan City Council to the opposition parties National Progress (left-wing, pro-European) and Mother Armenia Alliance (pro-Russian), which won 14 and 12 seats respectively.”[28]

An astounding country-wide march to the capital, Yaraven, of tens of thousands of Armenians, began in early May 2024, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, and has culminated in between 20 and 30,000 Armenians continuously demonstrating outside Armenia’s parliament. Regime-loyal police have reacted repressively towards the crowd and to sympathetic parliamentarians.  Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan is prepared to stand for prime minister, and he has many supporters. Prime Minister Pashinyan is bitterly resented by a majority of the Armenian population, and he is maintaining power through foreign, western, support.[29] 

Most reports about opposition to Pashinyan’s divestment of Armenia’s territory come from alternative media informed by the Armenian diaspora and based in the United States. Pro-western organisations like the Atlantic Council and publications like Politico, create and exploit an east-west divide.[30] For instance, they use a ‘cold-war’ rhetoric similar to the US-NATO line about Ukraine, indeed all of Europe, suggesting that Armenia risks some kind of ‘dependency’ on Russian energy sources, and that Russia is ‘blackmailing’ Armenia.[31] They also suggest that Russia has led Armenia down in its hour of need, although it was there for Armenia in 2020. They don’t mention, however, that a 2018 colour revolution featuring US-NATO-friendly NGOs brought down Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, who had long been a major figure in defending Ngorno-Karabakh, with Russian peace-keeping assistance, nor that the new prime minister – Pashinyan - had gone out of his way to alienate Moscow.

Azerbaijan-Russia-New Oil-Routes via Caspian to Mumbai

At the same time as Pashinyan is creating a gulf between Armenia and Russia, Turkey-aligned Azerbaijan is in deep cooperation with Russia to strengthen a petroleum-transport and economic corridor going from Russia via Azerbaijan, to a port in Iran, thence all the way to Mubai, India. Hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan are separating Armenia from benefitting from these developments, which initially included it, as can be seen in the initials INSTC, which stand for, “Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia-Iran-India-International North-South Transport Corridor.”) [32]

Pashinyan’s policies isolating Armenia from its regional neighbours create a greater opportunity for US-NATO-EU to interfere in the area with view to gaining power for itself and access to such Caspian economic routes and corridors. The fight-to-the-death of Israel vs Gaza, and Gaza-sympathising Houthis’ blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, have highlighted the importance of such alternative economic routes in the region. US-NATO-EU have been interfering in this area (far from their own territory) since the 19th century, with view to establishing outposts. Russia’s relationship with Turkey is extremely important because Turkey is in a geographical and political position to affect key alliances in the area in matters of both petroleum and war.  Turkey, as a robust ghost of the Ottoman Empire, weaves a fascinating political route of eastern and western alliances, also grabbing territory around itself where it can.  Turkey is a great friend to Azerbaijan.

 

NOTES

[1] “Colonel Artur Umrshatian has headed the Patrol Service since it was set up in 2021 with financial and technical assistance provided by the United States and the European Union.”[…]  “The new police force was meant to introduce Western standards in road policing, street patrol and crowd control in Armenia. Armenian and Western officials have described its creation as a key element of police reforms announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s administration.” The opinions of “Ioannisian’s Union of Informed Citizens (UIC) and two other non-governmental organizations,” are also quoted importantly in this Radio Liberty article.  https://www.azatutyun.am/a/32276301.html 

[2]  “Thousands of Armenians oppose the ceding of lands to Azerbaijan in a growing movement led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church.” Article:“In Armenia, archbishop leads standoff against the government.” May 24th, 2024. https://international.la-croix.com/world/in-armenia-archbishop-leads-standoff-against-the-government

[3] “Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan skipped a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) meeting Friday in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, in another signal of his nation's shift from regional alliances to cooperation with the West.  Previously, representatives of the Caucasian nation had also stopped attending meetings of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), criticizing it for failing to defend Armenia-backed separatist forces during a 44-day war with Azerbaijan in 2020. On Wednesday, Pashinyan accused two CSTO member states of directly aiding Azerbaijan, though he did not name them. Following the defeat in the Karabakh War in 2020, Armenia has increasingly turned to the West for military assistance, distancing itself from regional structures. But Armenia continues to participate in post-Soviet economic formats with reduced involvement.” Elena Teslova, Amid Armenia's turn to West, PM Pashinyan skips meeting of regional Commonwealth of Independent States: Armenian representatives curb participation in regional formats 25 May 2024. 25.05.2024 - Update : 26.05.2024  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/amid-armenias-turn-to-west-pm-pashinyan-skips-meeting-of-regional-commonwealth-of-independent-states-format/3229958 

[4] Artsakh is the term used by Armenians for this area, with reference to the self-declared Republic of Ngorno-Karabakh.

 [5]  The west is an apologist for Pashinyan’s apparently traitorous decisions, lending weight to his suspected US-NAO puppet status. Here is a typical article from The European Council of Foreign Relations:

“How Europeans should respond

Due to Armenia’s relative weakness against Azerbaijan, Pashinyan has had to accept compromises unpopular with the Armenian public. Until Yerevan’s negotiating position with Baku is strengthened, destabilising protests could escalate and perhaps violently so. This would undermine Pashinyan’s ability to implement his domestic reform agenda and to continue peace treaty negotiations with Azerbaijan, which will touch upon even more difficult issues.

To strengthen his position and allow him to pursue reforms and negotiations, the European Union should send clear signals of support for Pashinyan’s government. The recent €270 million plan for Armenian business and industry is a step in this direction, but Hungary has scuppered the EU’s efforts to use the European Peace Facility to provide non-lethal assistance to the Armenian military. European policymakers need to work towards overcoming their divisions on how to deal with Azerbaijan, an important trade and energy partner for several member states, and a key player of “middle corridor” initiatives. In doing so, the EU should not shy away from using the leverage it has over Azerbaijan, including with the preparation of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, to try to establish a more balanced negotiation equation that would not let Armenia face its much more powerful neighbour alone.” Source, Marie Dumoulin, “Setting boundaries: The fallout of Armenia’s border agreement with Azerbaijan.” https://ecfr.eu/article/setting-boundaries-the-fallout-of-armenias-border-agreement-with-azerbaijan/

[6]  The Soviet Union declared Ngorno-Karabakh an Autonomous Oblast in July 7, 1923, although it was situated geographically within Azerbaijan, due, some say, to a decision by Stalin. There are at least two intersecting explanations for this. One involves the British and the other involves Stalin:
“Following the breakup of the Russian Empire, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh formed an unrecognised polity known as the Karabakh Council in 1918. Due to Azerbaijani–British pressure, the Karabakh Council in August 1919 was forced to provisionally recognise the authority of Azerbaijan, pending the Paris Peace Conference's adjudication of the international borders of the republics within the South Caucasus.[72] As the peace conference was inconclusive regarding Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani governor-general Khosrov bey Sultanov, issued an ultimatum to the Armenians of Karabakh in early 1920, stipulating their acceptance of permanent inclusion into Azerbaijan. Leaders associated with the Republic of Mountainous Armenia and the Dashnak Party attempted to organize a rebellion against Azerbaijani rule, which failed and led to the massacre and displacement of Shusha's Armenian population.[73][g] By 1921, Soviet authorities were in control of Nagorno-Karabakh who decided on the formation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within Soviet Azerbaijan.” Source: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict

“Nagorno-Karabakh is a highly contested, landlocked region in the South Caucasus of the former Soviet Union. The present-day conflict has its roots in the decisions made by Joseph Stalin when he was the acting Commissar of Nationalities for the Soviet Union during the early 1920s. In April 1920, Azerbaijan was taken over by the Bolsheviks;  Armenia and Georgia were taken over in 1921. To garner public support, the Bolsheviks promised Karabakh to Armenia. At the same time, in order to placate Turkey, the Soviet Union agreed to a division under which Karabakh would be under the control of Azerbaijan. With the Soviet Union firmly in control of the region, the conflict over the region died down for several decades.” Source: Stalin’s Legacy: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, ADST. August 2013. https://adst.org/2013/08/stalins-legacy-the-nagorno-karabakh-conflict/

[7]  “Speaking about Armenian-Russian relations, the former president insisted he was not pro-Russian. However, he said he believes Armenia has no better ally or alternative than Russia: "Will NATO come and build my base here? Will any European country have a contingent in Karabakh? You know very well that I have never been anti-European in general. My current appeal is not to NATO or the European Union but to the adventurers trying to make a mess here for reasons unknown to me." Answering the question about the possibility of an international guaranteed dialogue between Khankendi/Stepanakert and Baku and the creation of international guarantees for Karabakh, Sargsyan said that he is sure that there are countries that can control Baku: "There are several international forces, even individual countries, that can control Azerbaijan if they want to."” Source: Article: Serzh Sargsyan: "Armenia Has No Better Ally than Russia." 9 March 2023. Caucasus Watch. https://caucasuswatch.de/en/news/serzh-sargsyan-armenia-has-no-better-ally-than-russia.html

[8] Matthew Ehret, “Eurasia’s Middle Corridor: An Atlanticist frenzy to stifle Europe-Asia integration,” 3 January 2023. https://thecradle.co/articles-id/1739  and https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/eurasias-middle-corridor-an-atlanticist. This is an excellent update on international oil-transport systems and politics.

[9]  Re the US’s long-term supply of arms to Azerbaijan: Alex Little,

Ending US military assistance to Azerbaijan immediately.” Responsible Statecraft. 30 October 2023. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/armenia-azerbaijan/#:~:text=From%202002%20to%202020%2C%20the,the%20Second%20Nagorno%2DKarabakh%20War.

Re Israel supplying Azerbaijan with arms: Isabel Debre, “On Israel supplying arms to Azerbaijan: Israeli weapons quietly helped Azerbaijan retake Nagorno-Karabakh — sources, data.” The Times of Israel.  5 October 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-weapons-quietly-helped-azerbaijan-retake-nagorno-karabakh-sources-data/#:~:text=Few%20have%20benefited%20more%20from,boosting%20Israel's%20large%20defense%20industry.

 Re confirmation of Russian peace-keeper withdrawl: “An advisor to Azerbaijan’s President said the decision had been agreed between Baku and Moscow at the “highest levels.” TH. The Hindu News. April 17, 2024 https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/russian-peacekeepers-started-withdrawal-from-nagorno-karabakh-kremlin/article68076355.ece  Note that, in this article, Baku (Azerbaijan) is quoted describing the Armenians as ‘separatists’ and omitting Ngorno-Karabakh’s recent history of formal status as Armenian, saying that it is well-known that Ngorno-Karabakh is in Azerbaijan territory. 
 

Re Kazakstan’s offer to negotiate peace: "Kazakhstan is ready to offer a platform for peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan: Tokayev." https://en.armradio.am/2024/07/06/kazakhstan-is-ready-to-offer-a-platform-for-peace-negotiations-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan-tokayev/

[10] According to Wikileaks, “In November 1989, Sargsyan was a delegate from Nagorno-Karabakh to the first congress of the Pan-Armenian National Movement. He was elected to the Supreme Council of Armenia in 1990. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Sargsyan was involved in organizing the defense of Nagorno-Karabakh and the formation of the NKR Defense Army in various capacities. In January 1992, when the first government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) was formed with Oleg Yesayan as prime minister, Sargsyan was appointed head of the Defense Committee, a position he held until the dissolution of the government in August 1992. Sargsyan then became a member of the seven-man State Defense Committee of the NKR (effectively the government of the NKR) which was formed in August 1992. Sargsyan held the position of minister of the army within the State Defense Committee.”  Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serzh_Sargsyan

[11]  “After the devastating earthquake of December 1988 and during the years of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, unions and other associations were heavily involved in relief and humanitarian efforts. The Government of Armenia was unable to cope with the situation itself and, therefore, it had to accept the active participation of civil society organizations (CSOs).

From 1988, major international organizations and international NGOs started arriving in Armenia. Alongside humanitarian aid, they contributed to the development of the local nongovernment sector. Among the first international NGOs operating in Armenia were Armenian Technology Group, CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam Great Britain Armenia, Save the Children, and United Methodist Committee on Relief. Also, the Armenian Diaspora provided humanitarian aid and contributed greatly to the rehabilitation process. Its ctivities in Armenia are still coordinated through international NGOs, including Hope, the NGO Center (NGOC), and the Armenian Relief Society.

This period can be considered the first stage in the formation of local NGOs. The focus of these new NGOs was on refugees, women, children, the elderly, and the disabled. NGOs’ inability to meet growing demand for emergency services and operations was due to the limited scope of NGOs’ activities; lack of local NGO skills, knowledge, and capacities; and absence of an appropriate legal framework.

The gradual increase in the number of international NGOs in Armenia and the corresponding need to regulate the activities of all types of CSOs led to the Government of Armenia adopting its first Law on Civil Society Organizations in 1996. The law encouraged international NGOs to shift their activities from emergency response to development, the protection of human rights, and enhancing the capacity of local NGOs.” Source: Civil Society Briefs: Armenia, 2011., p.1 https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/29304/csb-arm.pdf

[12]  With the fall of the Soviet Union, where all land had been state-owned, big business and politics moved in to get control of all this land, disorganising and impoverishing local communities. This harmful process has been well-documented for Ukraine by Frédéric Mousseau and Eve Devillers, War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine's Agricultural Land, The Oakland Institute, 2023. https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land.pdf. Note that Mousseau and Deviller have tracked what has happened to Ukraine in depth and over a long period of time. They published their first report in 2014. https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/walking-west-side-world-bank-and-imf-ukraine-conflict.

Another source:

“The concurrent passage of the processes of democratisation and marketisation in the former communist world have attracted considerable attention throughout the social sciences. Less attention has been paid, however, to the local dimensions of change. Much of the literature lacks an understanding of the role of people and institutions at the local level in dismantling communism and building new structures and practices. This paper explicitly focuses on the local experiences of wider processes of transformation by exploring participation in and exclusion from debates over future strategies for local economic development in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. Drawing on literatures on markets and democracy, this paper argues that the expected democratisation of post-Soviet politics and the pluralisation of political representation are limited, at least at the local scale, by the playing out of the processes of marketisation and democratisation in grounded contexts, both local and global, by the passage of those transformations at a particular moment in history, and by their concurrence.” (Source: Alison Stenning, “Marketisation and democratisation in the Russian Federation: the case of Novosibirsk,” Political Geography, Volume 18, Issue 5, June 1999, Pages 591-617.

[13]  Law of the Republic of Armenia on Non-Governmental Organizations. Number: HO-22-N. Date of Adoptions: 16.12.2016 Date of Signing: 16.01.2017 Date of entry into force: 04.02.2017 https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/1423415/1226_1517558440_armenia-law-on-ngos-2016-en.pdf 

[14]  Giancarlo Corsetti, “Does One Soros Make a Difference? A Theory of Currency Crises with Large and Small Traders.” https://personal.lse.ac.uk/DASGUPT2/sores.pdf

[15]  Nane Sahakian, “Soros Foundation In Armenia Decries ‘Smear Campaign,’” Radio Liberty, 29 January 2020. https://www.azatutyun.am/a/30404576.html

[16]  Naira Bulghadarian, ”Youth Activists Acquitted Over 2019 Attack On Government Critic.” Radio Liberty, 22 June, 2022. https://www.azatutyun.am/a/31910209.html

 [17]  “Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan skipped a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) meeting Friday in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, in another signal of his nation's shift from regional alliances to cooperation with the West.  Previously, representatives of the Caucasus nation had also stopped attending meetings of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), criticizing it for failing to defend Armenia-backed separatist forces during a 44-day war with Azerbaijan in 2020. On Wednesday, Pashinyan accused two CSTO member states of directly aiding Azerbaijan, though he did not name them. Following the defeat in the Karabakh War in 2020, Armenia has increasingly turned to the West for military assistance, distancing itself from regional structures. But Armenia continues to participate in post-Soviet economic formats with reduced involvement.” Elena Teslova, Amid Armenia's turn to West, PM Pashinyan skips meeting of regional Commonwealth of Independent States: Armenian representatives curb participation in regional formats 25 May 2024. 25.05.2024 - Update : 26.05.2024  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/amid-armenias-turn-to-west-pm-pashinyan-skips-meeting-of-regional-commonwealth-of-independent-states-format/3229958 

 [18]  Their denials are so detailed that they make excellent documentation of events. “Similarly, since 2022, the Georgian government has exploited the fear of war with Russia as a means to diminish local support for Ukraine and advance its domestic political agenda. The DFRLab observed a similar trend in two South Caucasus countries, Georgia and Armenia. Despite Armenia’s strained relations with Russia, the country grew its trade relationship with Russia. In Georgia, the ban on direct flights to and from Russia was lifted and trade has increased since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, particularly in importing oil and gas. In both countries, propaganda campaigns attempted to manipulate the populace by drawing parallels with the situation in Ukraine, framing its path as leading inexorably to war. In Georgia, government propaganda went further by accusing the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of plotting a revolution, a narrative also promoted in Azerbaijan. [Source: “In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics,” By the Digital Forensic Research Lab https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/undermining-ukraine-how-russia-widened-its-global-information-war-in-2023/

[19]  “Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan skipped a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) meeting Friday in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, in another signal of his nation's shift from regional alliances to cooperation with the West.  Previously, representatives of the Caucasian nation had also stopped attending meetings of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), criticizing it for failing to defend Armenia-backed separatist forces during a 44-day war with Azerbaijan in 2020. On Wednesday, Pashinyan accused two CSTO member states of directly aiding Azerbaijan, though he did not name them. Following the defeat in the Karabakh War in 2020, Armenia has increasingly turned to the West for military assistance, distancing itself from regional structures. But Armenia continues to participate in post-Soviet economic formats with reduced involvement.” Elena Teslova, Amid Armenia's turn to West, PM Pashinyan skips meeting of regional Commonwealth of Independent States: Armenian representatives curb participation in regional formats 25 May 2024. 25.05.2024 - Update : 26.05.2024  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/amid-armenias-turn-to-west-pm-pashinyan-skips-meeting-of-regional-commonwealth-of-independent-states-format/3229958 

[20]  Reuters, “Armenia freezes participation in Russia-led security bloc - Prime Minister.” February 23, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/armenia-freezes-participation-russia-led-security-bloc-prime-minister-2024-02-23/

[21]  Atlantic Council, “In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics.” By Digital Forensic Research Lab. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/undermining-ukraine-how-russia-widened-its-global-information-war-in-2023/

[22] “Russia on Friday summoned the ambassador of Armenia over "unfriendly steps," as Yerevan announced drills with the U.S. military and has grown increasingly critical of Moscow's role in the Nagorno-Karabakh standoff. The move followed warnings by the Kremlin against conducting drills with the U.S. and mounting tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory. Yerevan, a traditional ally of Russia, has become more vocal in its criticism of Moscow's peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "the Armenian leadership had in recent days taken a series of unfriendly steps." These included "U.S. military drills on Armenian territory," a trip to Kyiv by the Armenian Prime Minister's wife and Yerevan's decision to join the International Criminal Court, it added.” Source: AFP, “Russia Summons Armenian Ambassador Over 'Unfriendly Steps,'” Moscow Times, 9 September 2023. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/09/09/russia-summons-armenian-ambassador-over-unfriendly-steps-a82410

[23] “Armenian PM: We’ll hand Azerbaijan some territory to avoid a new war. Nikol Pashinyan has pledged to sign a lasting peace deal with Baku after decades of conflict.” Politico, 19 mars 2024. https://www.politico.eu/article/armenia-pm-nikol-pashinyan-hand-azerbaijan-some-territory-avoid-new-war/#:~:text=On%20a%20visit%20to%20the,fall%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union.

[24]  “Armenia Agrees To Return 4 Villages To Azerbaijan As First Step To Define Borders,” Radio Free Europe, 19 April 2024. https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-returns-villages-azerbaijan-borders-karabakh/32912820.html

[25] “The losses to tax revenues will hit the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh government even harder than Yerevan. ”Ani Mejlumyan, Ulkar Natiqqizi, Following war with Armenia, Azerbaijan gains control of lucrative gold mines. Eurasianet. Jan 27, 2021. https://eurasianet.org/following-war-with-armenia-azerbaijan-gains-control-of-lucrative-gold-mines

 “The precise economic stakes for both Armenia and Azerbaijan are obscured by opaque governments. Mining enterprises in Armenia are obliged to disclose little information; activists’ repeated efforts to introduce transparency requirements have failed.” Ani Mejlumyan, Ulkar Natiqqizi, “Following war with Armenia, Azerbaijan gains control of lucrative gold mines,” Jan 27, 2021 https://eurasianet.org/following-war-with-armenia-azerbaijan-gains-control-of-lucrative-gold-mines.

[26] Ilham Karimli, “Azerbaijan Reveals Names of Foreign Mining Companies Illegally Operating in Karabakh Region,” Caspian News, January 18, 2023  https://caspiannews.com/news-detail/azerbaijan-reveals-names-of-foreign-mining-companies-illegally-operating-in-karabakh-region-2023-1-18-0/

[27] See, for instance, Narco Karabakh, Chapter 19, Where did all the Gold go?” https://www.narcokarabakh.net/en/stories/ch19  Note that this work naively relies on mostly foreign western sources, and is sensational, but it is also credibly describing a remote post-soviet region in a conflicted area rich in minerals and adjacent to a petroleum corridor, where you could expect illegal arms, human trafficking, and drug trafficking in the context of poverty and oligarchs.

[28] “In May 2024, as part of the process of normalizing relations between the two countries, the Armenian Prime Minister agreed to hand over control of four border villages in the Tavoush region to Azerbaijan. This region, located in the northeast of the country, is of strategic interest for its road link with Georgia. The agreement has led to a protest movement in the country, calling for the resignation of the current liberal centrist Prime Minister, Nikol Pachinian. His Civil Contract party won 54% of the vote in the last parliamentary elections in June 2021. However, in the municipal elections held in September 2023, Mr. Pachinian's party lost 33 of the 65 seats on the Yerevan City Council to the opposition parties National Progress (left-wing, pro-European) and Mother Armenia Alliance (pro-Russian), which won 14 and 12 seats respectively.” “Armenia.” Coface for Trade.  (Economic risk insights for various countries.) Updated May 2024.  https://www.coface.com/news-economy-and-insights/business-risk-dashboard/country-risk-files/armenia

[29] “Thousands of Armenians oppose the ceding of lands to Azerbaijan in a growing movement led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church.” Article: “In Armenia, archbishop leads standoff against the government.” May 24th, 2024. https://international.la-croix.com/world/in-armenia-archbishop-leads-standoff-against-the-government

[30] For instance: “In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics.” By Digital Forensic Research Lab. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/undermining-ukraine-how-russia-widened-its-global-information-war-in-2023/

[31] “Armenia heavily relies on Russia for energy; it imported 87.7 percent of its gas in 2022 from Russia. This dependency is essential due to the favorable pricing and its limited self-sufficiency, at 20 percent to 30 percent. Given the lack of alternatives to Russian gas and Armenia’s inability to cover its energy needs locally or through imports from other countries, Russian gas supply and its pricing remain a tool for blackmail. For example, two months after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Armenia agreed to pay for Russian gas in rubles. Armenia was also identified as a potential transshipment point for restricted items to Russia or Belarus, which led to two Armenian companies being sanctioned in 2023.” Source: “In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics.” By Digital Forensic Research Lab. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/undermining-ukraine-how-russia-widened-its-global-information-war-in-2023/

[32] Russia-Eastern plans to develop new oil and general trade corridors between Russia via Azerbaijan, Iran, and Mumbai, known as INSTC. INSTC stands for, “Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia-Iran-India-International North-South Transport Corridor.” Source: Matthew Ehret, “Eurasia’s Middle Corridor: An Atlanticist frenzy to stifle Europe-Asia integration,” 3 January 2023. https://thecradle.co/articles-id/1739  and https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/eurasias-middle-corridor-an-atlanticist.