Tag: war

Residents of the border village of Voskepar express concerns about the expected launch of the demarcation and delimitation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Lilit Avagyan met with villagers to hear their perspectives firsthand.

Mount Ararat doesn't stand as an obstacle to building a functional state, and suddenly loving Mount Aragats will not help us achieve our goals. Before we jettison our national symbols en masse, we need concrete plans and state-driven programs to improve the lives of an already beleaguered nation, writes Daniel Tahmazyan.

For the January 2024 EVN Security Report, Dr. Nerses Kopalyan introduced a rationalist explanation of war to address the causal mechanisms shaping Aliyev’s incentives for being conflict-prone. He speaks with EVN Report's Editor-in-Chief Maria Titizian about how rationalist models of war are applied to account for the decision-making and policy preferences of the Aliyev regime and why peace for the Azerbaijani president is deemed an “irrational” preference.

How does war shape the collective narrative? How have Armenian writers since the 1990s approached the impact of multiple wars? Mariam Aloyan looks at Armenian “war literature” spanning generations and decades.

Regardless of efforts to normalize relations between Armenia and Turkey, it is clear that as long as the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict remains unresolved, Armenian-Turkish relations will be held hostage to it. Hranoush Dermoyan explains.

Armenia has voted on a variety of conflicts and issues at the UN, including at the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. An analysis of its voting patterns reveals some overlooked aspects of Armenia’s foreign policy and its evolution.

Improvements in low-carbon technologies, driven in part by foreign energy policy, have created new opportunities for Armenia, a country without fossil fuel reserves, aligning environmental concerns and the pursuit of higher energy security more than ever before.

The “anticipation of violence” encapsulates how in contexts with drawn-out conflict, violence is present in the mundane, and the sense that renewed violence is inevitable becomes a regular feature of everyday life.

A number of non-governmental organizations were set up during and after the 2020 Artsakh War providing veterans with medical treatment, rehabilitation services, housing and other basic needs, playing a crucial role in improving the quality of life for wounded veterans.

Armenian experts help make sense of the ongoing discussions surrounding a possible peace deal between Baku and Yerevan, and what developments can actually be expected in the coming months.

There are three scenarios of how the war in Ukraine might end for Russia and what this will mean for the three countries of the South Caucasus. Gaidz Minassian examines the strategies of the players in the region.

Baku does not want an equitable peace, the West struggles to advance the negotiations, and Moscow prefers freezing the process to create a new status quo it can control. Yerevan will need to enhance its bargaining abilities by engaging in asymmetrical aggressive bargaining.

Armenian experts were hardly under the illusion that the CSTO would fulfill its statutory obligations toward Armenia, given strong military and political ties between Azerbaijan and some CSTO members.

The interplay between two conflicts, one in Eastern Europe, the other in the Caucasus provides a global dimension to the issues they contain. Beyond the common space-time matrix, what can we learn from what lies at the nexus of these two conflicts?

The scope of gross human rights violations that ethnic Armenians were subjected to during and after the 2020 Artsakh War contributes to the body of empirical data that could be used if Armenia were to become a party to the Rome Statute.

Although the only things Hratsin Ohanyan has left of her native Hadrut is a photo album and her dialect, she stubbornly refuses to let her status as an internally displaced person pull her down. She is resilient, hopeful and fearless.

Who is the most influential and determined mediator to prevent the possibility of another aggression against Artsakh or Armenia? The answer will define who can be the main guarantor of peace for the South Caucasus.

An interview by Gaidz Minassian with former French Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and former French Ambassador to Ukraine, Jacques Faure, who discusses the Ukraine-Russia and Armenia-Azerbaijan wars.

Suddenly Yerevan felt like Europe in the 1930s or 1940s: a crossroads, full of people from different places, with different histories, living with different temporalities of trauma related to different conflicts, and the sense that everything could change in a moment.

The security context for the month of October can be better understood as the changing configuration between Armenia’s implementation of its diplomatization-of-security doctrine against Azerbaijan’s multi-tiered hybrid warfare doctrine.

A young Armenian woman, born and raised in Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh, reflects on the changing, contradictory reality of her hometown two years after Azerbaijan launched a devastating war.

After almost three decades of remaining on the sidelines of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict negotiation process, the EU has now stepped in, positioning itself as a mediator in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conciliation process.

An existential crisis has erupted within the Armenian public discourse since the defeat in the 2020 Artsakh War. Gaidz Minassian argues that “all for the state and the state for all” must be the slogan of Armenians in the 21st century.

Ադրբեջանական զինուժի կողմից կատարված ռազմական հանցագործությունների իրական պատասխանատվության կենսունակ միջոցները քննող հոդվածի ՁայնաԳիրը։

A new video emerged of war crimes committed by Azerbaijani troops. The most viable way to have any real accountability for such crimes is for Armenia to sign and ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

There’s a sense of powerlessness among the Armenian people surrounded by two states—Azerbaijan and Turkey—whose sole intention appears to be our annihilation. But we are not powerless if we remain vigilant, rational and resolute.

On September 15-16, at France’s request, the UN Security Council dealt with the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict for the first time since 1994. As uncertainty reigns, all options are on the table, even the darkest—that of a renewed aggression by Baku.

Azerbaijan has made an enormous strategic mistake, Russia has allowed for a sizable power vacuum in the region, and the United States has determined to capitalize on these developments, undertaking a policy pivot in the South Caucasus.

For years, the EU did nothing to reign Putin in. Finding an alternative for its energy needs, the EU traded one gas supplier waging a genocidal war of aggression—Russia, with another—Azerbaijan.

In EVN Report’s news roundup for the week of September 16: This week our editors Maria Titizian and Roubina Margossian present a chronology of events following Azerbaijan’s large-scale attack against the sovereign territory of Armenia that was launched just after midnight on September 13.

Armenia hasn’t participated in any multilateral connectivity initiatives in the South Caucasus since independence, primarily due to the war with Azerbaijan. Since the 2020 Artsakh War, new projects are taking shape—again without Armenia’s participation.

Baku’s aggressive rhetoric must not be normalized. In spite of their geopolitical, oil and gas interests, major international players should define their red lines, refrain from a policy of parity and prevent further military aggression by Azerbaijan.

If the EU is honest in its commitment to make peace possible in the South Caucasus, then it needs to address Baku’s ongoing anti-Armenian rhetoric and policy of creating permanent tensions on the borders to pressure Armenia for further concessions.

After its military victory in the 2020 Artsakh War, Azerbaijan elevated its war of narratives against Armenians to a new and increasingly aggressive level, often accompanied with disinformation.

The 2020 Artsakh War and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war are the first classic interstate wars in almost two decades involving the regular armies on both sides of the conflict, highlighting trends in warfare, including the effect of the latest technological solutions.

The 2020 Artsakh War exposed a number of myths and misconceptions in Armenia and among Armenians toward the West. Taline Papazian reviews some of those misconceptions and outlines current Western engagement in Armenia and the region.

1850-ականների Ղրիմի պատերազմի, միջազգային խորը հակասությունների ու Սևծովյան տարածաշրջանում ազդեցությունն ավելացնելու շարունակվող պայքարին անդրադարձող հոդվածի ՁայնաԳիր տարբերակը։

The Crimean War in the 1850s did not resolve the geopolitical rivalries of the parties involved. The fight for influence in the Black Sea region continues even today.

A collection of articles about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the lens of Moscow by Dr. Artyom Tonoyan entitled, “Black Garden Aflame” will become a classic and a major go-to resource for scholars, writes Dr. Pietro Shakarian.

Almost all systemic and structural political and military weaknesses of Armenia share a fundamental root cause: the chronic absence of a culture and tradition of Statehood, both in the mindset of the political leadership and the general public.

A new security environment was created after the 2020 Artsakh War, requiring a revision of Armenia’s National Security Strategy that was adopted before Azerbaijan launched the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Hovsep Kanadyan explains.

Recent data warns of a demographic crisis in Armenia. In a country with a high rate of aging, programs are being implemented to boost birth rates. But are they effective?

«Կարծիք» բաժնում հրապարակված՝ Գևորգ Օսկանյանի «Ինչու է Հայաստանին պետք ռեալպոլիտիկ, հիմա՛» հոդվածի ձայնագիրը։ Ընթերցում է Գոհար Աբրահամյանը։ Ավելի քան 30 տարիների ընթացքում մշտապես խոսվել է Հայաստանի ազգային նպատակների արդարացիության և չափազանց քիչ` այդ նպատակներին հասնելու միջոցների և ընտրված նպատակների իրագործելիության մասին:

If those genuine activists who have genuine grievances want this government gone, then they must also get rid of the Kocharyans and Sargsyans from their ranks. Until this happens, the transition to mainstream legitimacy will be a Sisyphean endeavor.

The general state of flux and lack of clarity on Artsakh and the negotiation process has produced a great deal of uncertainty, precipitating important questions about nationhood, state-building, and how to move forward.

The West is openly implying that it intends to remain involved in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, even as its relations with Russia could potentially hobble the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmanship.

In the wake of lingering concern over the events unfolding in Ukraine following Russia’s February 24 invasion and its defeat in Artsakh in 2020, how can Armenia pull itself out of this chain of elevated conflicts?

While the recent wave of Russians moving to Armenia following the invasion of Ukraine has been surprising to some, it’s worth pointing out that Yerevan has hosted successions of Russian emigre communities for quite a long time now.

During March 2022, the Word—not only allegorically, but in the most literal sense—finds itself outstretched like the Vitruvian man strung from the corners of our Armenian-Russian-Ukrainian semiotic triangle.

In EVN Report’s news roundup for the week of April 8: The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan meet in Brussels; Russian Foreign Minister says French and U.S. co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are refusing to cooperate with the Russian co-chair because of their “Russophobic stance” in light of the situation in Ukraine; parliamentary opposition factions stage a protest in Yerevan ahead of the Brussels meeting & more.

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Brussels on April 6, 2022, on the initiative of the European Council president. Why is the EU taking an interest now when it was a mere observer during the 2020 Artsakh War?

The impossible situation that Armenia finds itself in because of the Russo-Ukraine conflict can be mitigated through a policy known as strategic shirking, argues Nerses Kopalyan.

Latest developments in Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrate Azerbaijan’s intent to ethnically cleanse the indigenous Armenian population and highlight the necessity of introducing international norms in the peacekeeping architecture there.

Azerbaijan’s main goal is the removal of ethnic Armenians from Artsakh through the creation of conditions unfavorable for living, as well as creating an atmosphere of fear among the Armenian population.

Baku is consistently thwarting all post-war negotiations and existing formats, as the sole agenda of Aliyev’s regime is the total annihilation of Armenians from Artsakh, and possibly even the Republic of Armenia.

Media commentators, analysts and historians have all scrambled to draw historical parallels to make sense of Putin’s recent aggression toward Ukraine, but there have been relatively few nuanced references to World War I.

As Ukraine’s western city comes under Russian missile attack, the Armenian community is wrapping its treasures, but preparing to stay.

In trying to understand what nationalism is or if it can be strictly national, this article re-examines the Armenian national movement of the 19th century in relation to the Italian Risorgimento.

Given the strategic significance of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the power to implement the Montreux Convention underscores the strategic importance that Turkey retains due to its geography.

Amid the war in Ukraine and economic turmoil in Russia, the Armenian government has been quick to open its doors to Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian citizens who want to relocate to Armenia or find temporary refuge.

In EVN Report’s news roundup for the week of March 4: Armenia’s parliament elects new president; natural gas prices set to increase on April 1; Armenia abstains during UN vote on a resolution against the war in Ukraine and more.

In its historic “Uniting for Peace” session, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution reaffirming Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Sossi Tatikyan explains why Armenia abstained.

“We only get a small window of actually living in historical moments.” War photographer Jonathan Alpeyrie and French-Armenian Cellist Astrig Siranossian team up for a photography sale to benefit the children of Armenia and Artsakh.

This new series presents the Russo-Turkish wars of the 19th-20th centuries, which were of crucial importance for the two segments—eastern and western—of the Armenian people.

In light of Azerbaijan’s aggressive military operations, the international community’s response and the formation of a format for the delimitation and demarcation process, Sossi Tatikyan offers comprehensive suggestions on potential formats and phases.

On December 7, the International Court of Justice announced its decision regarding the request for provisional measures by Armenia and Azerbaijan, marking the next stage in the ongoing conflict between the two states.

The recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. stemmed from its own interests. Other allied powers are considering following suit. Will Armenia be able to take advantage of this shift in global geopolitics?

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Tavush clashes. This article looks into the chronology of events as they developed, the subsequent narrative that was perpetuated in Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the consequent reactions of regional and international powers.

Armenia is at the wrong end of global cyber security indexes. The lack of a comprehensive cyber security national policy makes the country's network and information systems vulnerable. The 2020 Artsakh War clearly proved this.

Azerbaijan increased its military spending by 17% in 2020; this was among the largest annual increases in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Ani Avetisyan breaks down the numbers of the military expenditures of both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Three years ago today, Serzh Sargsyan resigned as Prime Minister. When it comes to unjustified constitutional amendments and rigged referendums, Armenian history should never repeat itself.

For nearly three decades, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been buying large quantities of weapons from a number of countries. Hovhannes Nazaretyan presents a comprehensive list of weapons acquired by both countries since independence.

War casualties are one of the major components of Armenia’s demographic crisis. Beyond their immediate impact, they also leave traces for years afterwards.

Armenia can either unify around a shared vision for the future or digress into internal political strife. Artin DerSimonian explores what a unified Armenian vision for the future could include if the country is to continue on the path of healthy socio-economic development.

Taking into account Turkey’s overt support to Azerbaijan during the 2020 Artsakh War, Armenia’s government has decided to ban the import of Turkish goods for six months. The ban will take effect on December 31 of this year.

For a week now, Yerevan seems to have changed its colors, its mood and even its soundscape. While the war rages on the front lines, the home front is bursting with support, solidarity and love.

The flare-up of violence on the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border triggered a chain of reactions in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Historian Vahram Ter-Matevosyan examines the domestic situation in Azerbaijan and the implications of Turkish involvement.

In this first analytical piece for EVN Report, Yerevan-based psychiatrist Aram Hovsepyan writes about the struggles of people with mental health issues and their caregivers based on field research from his recent visit to the border communities in the Tavush region of Armenia.

What is it like to find yourself on a heavily militarized contact line? How does it feel to see an adversary, a mere 400 meters away, who was the reason you became a refugee? Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte, a refugee from Baku, writes about her emotional journey to the line and back.

Nerses Kopalyan writes that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s declaration of war against the entrenched powers of the previous system is not simply a singular attack against corruption, but rather a broad multi-pronged strategy that envisions an ideational restructuring of Armenia’s political culture.

Political analyst Armen Grigoryan writes that negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the Artsakh conflict have hit a wall and resulted in escalations on the frontline bolstering Azerbaijan's inclination towards a military solution to the conflict.

Azat Adamyan, a young entrepreneur from Karabakh (Artsakh) created a hiking club, volunteered during the April War, opened the first-ever pub in Stepanakert and now has his sights set on bigger plans. While he realizes the limits of his reality, his dreams are boundless.

Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister of Artsakh, Armine Aleksanyan on her long journey from Martouni to Stepanakert, to London and Vienna and back to Artsakh to work in the service of a country that is not recognized by the world.

Photographer Scout Tufankjian has captured the essence of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) through her photos. One year after the April War, EVN Report is proud to present these images as a reminder that all children deserve to live in peace.

Security expert Samvel Martirosyan writes that Armenia and Azerbaijan are not only waging war on the battlefield but in the media, through social networks, on academic platforms - all platforms where it is possible to disseminate information and propaganda.