우크라이나에 발목잡혀 아르메니아를 지원하지 못한 러시아

[위종민]

러시아는 그 동안 러시아 민족의 보호자를 자처해왔습니다만 우크라이나에 발목이 잡혀 나고르노-카라바흐에서 아르메니아인들이 추방당하는 걸 막지 못했다고 합니다. 

이제 아르메니아인은 사실상 더 이상 아제르바이잔에 존재하지 않는다고 합니다. 추방이나 동화가 거의 완료됐나 봅니다. 

https://asiatimes.com/2023/10/russia-leaves-armenia-ally-to-burn-in-azerbaijan/

Russia leaves Armenia ally to burn in Azerbaijan

Russia leaves Armenia ally to burn in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s violent ouster of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh seized on Russia’s weakness caused by the Ukraine war

By DANIEL WILLIAMSOCTOBER 5, 2023

Ethnic Armenians flee the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. Picture: Screengrab / Sky News

Vladimir Putin, self-declared protector of ethnic Russian and other allied communities along Russia’s borders, failed last week to defend nominal Armenians allies who live in Azerbaijan from being driven out of the country by the Azeri army.

Though distant geographically, the Azerbaijan offensive was a byproduct of Putin’s failure to conquer Ukraine, where the Russian leader has also pledged to defend ethnic Russian allies. Such active solidarity is one of the Kremlin’s key foreign policy talking points.

But Azerbaijan took the opportunity of Russia’s preoccupation with Ukraine to end more than three decades of war with pro-Russian Armenians living in the breakaway Azeri region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenians are now effectively no longer in Azerbaijan.

Russia’s war in Ukraine seems to have played a role in the spasm of violence. The Azerbaijan government gambled that Putin would be unwilling to take on a new military operation, however small, while fighting a full-scale war in Ukraine.

Armenians inside Azerbaijan and within Armenia suspect that Ukraine had sapped Russia’s war-making abilities. “Armenia’s security architecture was 99.999% linked to Russia, including when it came to the procurement of arms and ammunition,” Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

“Today we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms and ammunition and in this situation it’s understandable that even if it wishes, the Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia’s security needs.”  

In any event, Azerbaijan’s action is the latest of multiple, unexpected and negative events along Russia’s borders stemming from the Ukraine war.

Russia faces a new NATO adversary in Finland, which rushed to join NATO after the  Ukraine war. Before the invasion, Helsinki, even if wary of Russia, maintained a formal neutrality between Moscow and the West. Sweden, shelving a long tradition of neutrality in Europe, is also joining.  

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[백선호]

우리가 걱정하던 '유럽에서 큰 전쟁이 나서 미군 전력 대부분이 유럽에 묶여 있을 때 한반도에서 전쟁이 나면 어떻게 하나'가 아르메니아에서 일어난 셈이네요.

[위종민]

네 그렇게 됐네요 체첸은 반군들 씨가 말라버린 것 같고, 조지아는 위성국이 아니라 러시아가 상대라 들고 일어나질 못했는데, 아제르바이잔 입장에선 좋은 기회였긴 했지요