Thread by @MacAndrews

🇦🇲My thoughts on situation in Armenia. The clear winner is Russia, obviously Azerbaijan will take this win in the short term – great for the spirits in the country, for Aliyev himself, but in the long run Russian military presence is a big problem.
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#Armenia #NagornoKarabakh

I know not everyone will feel this way and it may be easier for me to say than for many Armenians. I’ve never lived in Armenia, but I consider myself part of Armenian diaspora, even if I’m not active in any diaspora community life. I’m not an expert. /2

I understand national trauma and self-preservation instincts can leave long lasting effects, it shapes your narratives through you upbringing, through you family stories. /3

But ultimately it also detaches you from the reality of the situation and weakens your judgement. /4

Armenia lost, but Armenia didn’t just lose yesterday or in the past month. Armenia kept losing the advantage for past give or take 30 years. A frozen conflict is still a conflict. Successive corrupt Armenian governments kept the conflict frozen, /5

without real intention and political will to resolve the problem in the long term. That certainly was as well the Russian interest who kept their hands tied for those years. /6

If you are Armenia, you can’t be serious about keeping the conflict frozen forever. You just can’t. The time is against you. Your rival is wealthier and regional politics are not exactly working in your favour. You have objectively terrible geopolitical and /7

geographical situation. You know who are Azerbaijan’s allies, partners. You know who yours are and who aren’t. There is no way you can think this will last forever. /8

Negotiate from position of power, while you still have leverage. And its not even the benefit of the hindsight, its just a common sense. /9

In comes Pashinyan, inexperienced leader, who is outside of the political establishment circles and not Putin’s favourite person. His failure is another name for Putin to point to, when speaking about importance of stability, importance of avoiding protests and revolutions. /10

Then war happens, not without his mistakes e.g. unnecessary blunt rhetoric or lack of political will to make change. But those are just small details. The inevitable happened. It made a bad situation much worse. It has pretty much put Armenia sovereignty in question. /11

At the same time, if there was a better ally for Armenia than Russia, I’m sure Armenia would’ve made that alliance. The truth is that this crappy ally is still providing some sort of security and some counter balance to Turkey and Azerbaijan in the region. /12

Whatever the historic injustices have happened to Armenia on Russia's watch, Russia is still is an option if not the only option for Russia. Unfortunately. /13

People sometimes are not able to know what success is until they are shown failure. They put disproportioned emphasis on certain things, while ignore the importance of other things. For example territory, a piece of land, over human life and constant suffering, cost of life, /14

psychological damage. Think about it. 30 years, parents of boys were almost unhappy to have boys. Were in constant fear of their sons being taken to die at age of 18-19. Imagine how quickly you grow up as 18 year old in muddy traches when bullets are whistling. /15

But this is not the end of the world for Armenia. It will be difficult few days and I hope they are as peaceful as possible in Yerevan. The footage from Yerevan yesterday, frankly was disgraceful. Use that energy to rebuild the country. /16

Keep building civil society, keep working on peace, keep developing your country. Diaspora keep spending your money on Armenian people, in Armenia, not on politicians in your own country. You cannot outspend Azerbaijan anyway. /17

I would resign if I was Pashinyan & hold new elections. Not to win,as much as to at least see it as a referendum to know how many people in Armenia think differently about the dire situation the country is in & options their leader had when making this difficult decision. /18

I have a lot more thoughts about many things, Western leaders, other countries, institutions, history, but the thread is already longer than planned, so I will leave it here. Peace to everyone.
#Armenia #NagornoKarabakh /19

@UnrollHelper

Correction: Tweet 13
*if not the only option for Armenia (not Russia)