The Duran Podcast - Armenia continues to follow in Ukraine's footsteps

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Armenia continues to follow in Ukraine's footsteps

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Armenia. I believe we had in Minsk a CSTO meeting, didn't we? And am I right to say that Armenia didn't attend? Yeah. Right. I mean, they didn't attend. What happened there? Right.

I mean, they sent some, you know, civil servants, some officials. But they didn't participate at the political level. level. So Putin was there. Lukashenko was there. The other leaders of the CSTO states were there. Pashinyan himself was obviously not there and no political leader was there. Now, Armenia is saying that they have no intention of leaving the CSTO, but they are clearly leaving it in spirit. And apparently they are in now discussions with the US and France to get weapons from these two countries. and the US is telling them you must close the Russian military base in Armenia, which is there as part of the CSDO.

So what the Armenians are trying to do, in effect, is that they want to continue to hide behind the CSTO security guarantees because they need the CSTO to protect them from Azerbaijan and from Turkey, but at the same time they want to end their own participation. They want in effect to have their cake and eat it as well. And there were some very tart comments about this from Lukashenko.

The Russians obviously have seen through all of this. I think gradually, if the Armenians continue this way, the Russians and the others will simply tell them, look, are you in the CSDO or not? If not, then go. If you want to stay, then participate fully. Yeah, it's it's, they want their cake and eat it too.

So they want to to pivot to the U.S. and to France, to the European Union, which was Bachelignan's plan all along with Nakhobarmen, so we see it playing out now. And as they make this pivot, they want the protection guarantees of the CSTO so as to prevent any further conflict with Azerbaijan. But, you know, Alev and Erdogan, they've also warned Paschignan about what he's doing. The Russians are on to this. And if Armenia were to leave the CSTO, I imagine that Azerbaijan, along with Turkey, would make another military move towards territory that they would like to, like, to capture specifically connecting a land corridor through Azerbaijan, through Armenia. They've essentially all but made that clear. Azerbaijan has already said that if Armenia starts importing arms from the United States

or specifically France, then for Azerbaijan, that crosses a red line. and in that case, Azerbaijan reserves the right to restart the war. And, of course, as we've seen, it is now militarily far superior. So what, as he said, as you absolutely rightly say, Bacinian wants to avert that by remaining inside the CSTO. So he wants, in effect, Russian protection, even as he's turning against the Russians. It's the sort of strategy which he's been following, basically ever since he became Prime Minister of Armenia,

redirecting Armenia towards the West, whilst still hoping that the Russians will be there to pull the coals out of the fire for him whenever he gets into trouble. And the danger of this, obviously, is this. he's taking the Russians and the Azerbaijans and Erdogan for fools. And they are not fools. So it's a very dangerous game. It's a very reckless game. And as I said, I am sure that there will come a point where the Russians will say enough enough. You know, are you in or are you out? If you want to go out, by all means, go out. But at that point, of course, you're on your own. And if you're a attacked by Azerbaijan, we're not going to be there to help you. And if you're starting to push out

our military base, you know, start importing large amounts of weapons from the United States and France and start doing all those kind of things, well, we're going to draw our own conclusions. And at that point, particularly, since you're not participating in the work of the CSTO, there's no sense in your remaining in any longer. Paschianian is pushing the country towards disaster. It really is. And I can't figure out at what benefit to the people of Armenia. At what benefit?

My understanding, well, I mean, my own personal view is none. Ultimately, I mean, he's pulling Armenia into a very, very dangerous direction. But of course, this is what a lot of these people who you see in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, these politicians end up doing. I mean, we saw that in Russia, with the liberals who were in control there in the 90s. We see that in Ukraine. We see that now in Moldova, where, by the way, there's big protests in Georgia. But, you know, there's still this visceral belief that they have. And the, you know, there is always, there is always a was some electoral support for this, some people in Armenia and in all of these other countries,

who generally believe that the right way for their countries is to end their old relationships, give up on their own alliances, old alliances, which have worked, that integrating with the West is the nice, flashy thing to do, and that they should do it. And I'm sorry to say this, but I'm afraid there's also the other issue of money. In all of these countries, there are people who are perhaps less concerned about the overall outcome for the country, but who believe, usually rightly, that a realignment for the West would be financially and materially highly beneficial for themselves. And there are people like that in Armenia, and there have been people like that,

in Ukraine, in Georgia, in Moldova, in all of these places, and in Russia itself, of course. All right. So let's wrap up the video with one question, I guess. Is it possible for Armenia to get rid of the base, the Russian base? And if that were to happen, what then? Well, indeed, I mean, well, yes, it is. I mean, you know, the Armenian, Georgia, there was a Russian base in Georgia. the former Georgian president, the anti-Russian Georgian president, Saakashvili, closed it. I mean, he said that he told the Russians to leave and they did in fact leave.

Or alternatively, the Russians, if they decide that, you know, the CSTO in terms of Armenia isn't working anymore, they might simply say to the Armenians, look, we don't believe you're really a member of the CSTO. In light of this, we are going to pull our base out. these things can and do happen. So these are these are possible things. If we get into that situation, then Armenia is an incredibly dangerous position. And the risk is that like Georgia, like Ukraine, much more so, of course, in Ukraine, having, you know, gone up the Primrose path to take a line from someone else. Armenia will be badly smashed.

And then, of course, Paschignan, never accepting or taking responsibility because these people do. Well, he might quit the scene. But of course, the Armenian people in Armenia will be left to pick up the pieces. And of course, the Russians by that point might feel differently about their relationship, their long-standing relationship with Armenia than they do now. I think for the record, there is still a lot of goodwill towards Armenia in Russia. But what Pashinian is doing is he's frittering that away. And Aliyev and Dardouan, I get the sense that you're just,

they're waiting for Pashinian to make the fatal error and then they're going to bounce. That's the sense that I'm getting from them. Absolutely. Absolutely. He's, by the way, and we're talking about the Russians. I mean, he's also alienated at Iran, which is another historic friend of Armenia in this region. And this even as Armenia remains confronted by these very, very dangerous and powerful enemies. But you're absolutely right.

I mean, you only have to compare Aliyev and the extremely clever way in which he's handled the diplomacy. and see that Parasinian is completely out of his depth, and he doesn't really seem to understand fully what he's doing, or at least what the long-term consequences of his own. Yeah, well, if he's going to pivot towards the U.S. and France or towards the EU, he has to alienate Russia, yes, but he also has to alienate Iran as well. I mean, those are the prerequisites. He has to. He has to.

Well, that's right. There's no, there is no, the position of Armenia, it's just looking at a map that he's alienating these countries that are, I mean, you have to look at a map and you understand that he should have to be doing these things. Exactly. I mean, I should say, I mean, my brother who has numerous contacts with Armenia, he took a sort of unscientific sounding of the people he knew. And yes, there was one person who supports Paschignan and has accepted his, you know, the sort of narrow. Pretty much everybody else as far as I could see in Armenia are very, and these are, you know, well-informed people, English-speaking people. They're deeply concerned and worried about the direction events are taking and strongly disagree with what Paschignan is doing. But my own impression is that the opposition in Armenia remains very weak and, fragmented. They can call out large crowds. There is no single figure, however, to lead them.

There is still concerns about corruption issues amongst some of them. And for the moment at least, there is no viable challenge to Paschenya. And that is the problem. And the result is, there's no effective domestic break on what he's doing. We will leave it there. The durand. dot com we are on rumble odyssey bitchute telegram rock fan and twitter x and go to the durand shop 20% off use the code the duran 20 take care