Tuesday, August 10 2021 12:04

ArmInfo. The prospect of the loss of territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan's occupation of a significant part of the republic's territory seems extremely  unlikely. Head of the CIS Institute Department of Eurasian  Integration and SCO Development, military expert Vladimir Evseev  expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.

"It is clear that Russia will simply not allow this. Yes, Russia  actually did not intervene in the 44-day war in Artsakh, since this  was not envisaged by our allied obligations. But Russia has these  obligations to Armenia, and Moscow will fulfill them in any case.  Another issue is that Azerbaijan may try to penetrate to some depth  into the Armenian territory. And in this case, a lot will be  determined by the combat capability of the Armenian Armed Forces, by  their ability to squeeze out Azerbaijani units from their own  territory, " he stressed.

according to the expert, a certain role in all this  may be played by  the placement of new Russian outposts on the border between Armenia  and Azerbaijan. Commenting on the proposal made from Yerevan to  deploy CSTO observers on the border with Azerbaijan, Evseev assessed  it as "raw" and "incomplete". In his opinion, the problem of such  formats, as a rule, rests on the absence of technical means of  control on the part of observers and on the imperfection of the  incident investigation mechanism itself.      Commenting on the ongoing visit of Secretary General of the  Collective Security Treaty Organization Stanislav Zas to Armenia,  Evseev noted that against the background of the rather alarming  situation on the border with Azerbaijan and many other problems, this  visit was expected. In this light, the expert emphasized the need to  discuss various proposals of Yerevan in the direction of ensuring  security and the use of the CSTO tools for this purpose.

"We were expecting your visit back in May. For Armenia, this period  was quite tense, but, unfortunately, your visit did not take place.  We do not want the tension on the border, but we are not going to put  up with what is happening and are ready to defend our territory. We  express our readiness to resolve the issue peacefully, but our  patience is also not unlimited, and in the absence of a peaceful  settlement, we reserve the right to resolve the issue by using force,  "Armenian Defense Minister Arshak Karapetyan said at a meeting with  the CSTO Secretary General.

According to Evseev, given the key role of Russia in the CSTO, as  well as Moscow's mediation between Yerevan and Baku, the prospect of  CSTO intervention in the current situation on the border looks rather  problematic. In this light, the expert also noted that many issues in  this vein are resolved directly within the framework of  military-political relations between Moscow and Yerevan.

The CSTO Secretary General is in Yerevan on a working visit since  August 9. Apart from the Minister of Defense of Armenia, Stanislav  Zas has already met with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of  Armenia Armen Grigoryan. On August 10, his meeting with Armenian  Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is expected.