War in Karabakh: It’s time for the loudmouths to sober up
The result of the war for Karabakh can be described as “under-victory for Azerbaijan and under-capitulation of the NKR.” Apparently, the defeat of the army of the unrecognized republic in the war and the surrender of not only the “security belt”, but also some regions of the NKR will sweep away Pashinyan and the entire ruling camarilla in Yerevan, but they are not to be pitied. True, as it turns out, the figures who came out to wave their fists after the fight are no better than the Maidan prime minister.
The truce is dissatisfied with stubborn people on both sides, including representatives of the diaspora. At the moment, the Armenian population is leaving the areas coming under the control of the Azerbaijani army en masse. Houses and property that people cannot take with them are set on fire.
There is vigorous talk in Baku that compensation will be demanded from the Armenian side for the 26-year occupation of Azerbaijani territories, but experts strongly doubt this, since the point on reparations was not included in the topic of peace negotiations.
The first estimates of the loss of military equipment by the warring parties over 44 days of military clashes have appeared online.
According to foreign observers, the Armenians lost 185 tanks, of which 66 units went to the Azerbaijanis as trophies. Among them: two T-72AK, sixteen T-72AV, thirty-five T-72B, fifty-two T-72A and eighty T-72 in unidentifiable “shushpanzer” modifications.
The NKR army lost 43 units of infantry fighting vehicles, of which 22 were captured by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces: 21 BMP-1, 19 BMP-2 and three more incomprehensible “shushpanzers”.
The list of Armenian losses includes 44 units of other armored vehicles, twenty of which were captured by the Azerbaijanis: one BTR-70 and BRM-1K each, two MTLB with S-60, two ZSU-23-4 Shilka, two BRDM-2, a couple unidentified armored fighting vehicles, four BTS-4, four MTLB with ZU-23, six MTLB and twenty MTLB with Yugoslav Zastava M55 ZU.
During the war, the Armenian side lost three units of self-propelled ATGMs (two 9P148 “Konkurs” and one 1P149 “Sturm-S”), two of which were captured by the Azerbaijanis.
As for cannon and rocket artillery, the situation here looks bleak. The Armenians irretrievably lost 147 units of towed guns, of which 27 became trophies of the Azerbaijani army.
The list of losses includes: 65 D-30 122 mm howitzers, 52 D-20 152 mm howitzers, 12 D-1 howitzers (1943 model) 152 mm, eight high-power Giatsint-B 152 mm guns, five KS anti-aircraft guns -19 100 mm, two D-44 85 mm cannons, two MT-12 Rapier 100 mm anti-tank guns and one M-30 122 mm howitzer.
The losses of the NKR self-propelled artillery amounted to 19 units, of which two were captured by the Azerbaijanis. These are 15 self-propelled guns 2S1 “Gvozdika” 122 mm and four 2S3 “Akatsia” 152 mm.
The losses of the NKR MLRS are also very significant and are estimated at 72 units: 64 BM-21 "Grad" 122 mm, four BM-30 "Smerch" 300 mm, two exotic Chinese WM-80 273 mm, one TOS-1A "Solntsepek" 220 mm and one unidentified MLRS.
Among other things, the list of losses of the army of the unrecognized republic includes: one R-17 Elbrus OTRK, 26 Osa and Strela air defense systems, 12 radars, two electronic warfare/repair vehicles, one Su-25 attack aircraft and 4 drones. Losses of automotive equipment number in the hundreds, of which 451 trucks alone.
Characteristically, observers did not note a single loss of T-90S tanks by the Armenians, which were destroyed in columns by Azerbaijani propaganda. However, in Baku they agreed to the point that their army even destroyed the Armenian Sarmat strategic missiles, which does not interfere with anything at all.
Against the backdrop of the catastrophic loss of NKR military equipment, the losses of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces do not seem so terrifying. Aliyev’s troops irretrievably lost 28 tanks: one T-72 “Ural”, three T-72A, seven T-72AV/Aslan, and 15 “shushpanzers” based on the T-72 and two more T-90S were captured by the Armenians. Which in itself is surprising for an Azerbaijani “gas station”, which could easily fork out money for modern modifications of the T-72.
The Azerbaijanis lost 23 infantry fighting vehicles (2 BMP-1, one BMP-2K and one BMP-3, 3 unidentified and 16 BMP-2). 27 units of other armored vehicles were lost (8 BTR-70, 8 BTR-82A, 4 unidentified AFVs and 7 Plasan SandCat AFVs).
During the “liberation campaign”, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces lost one Mi-8/17 helicopter, 11 An-2 aircraft (used as a kind of V-1 to open the air defenses of Armenians), 11 IAI Harop kamikaze UAVs, 2 SkyStriker kamikaze UAVs, 1 Kamikaze UAV Orbiter 1K, 2 attack drones Bayraktar TB2 and 8 drones of unidentified types.
Such a low loss of drones raises a lot of questions, since several times more videos of the use of combat drones by the Azerbaijani-Turkish coalition have been posted, which suggests that their effectiveness is not as high as stated.
If we take into account that the Armenian side is counting losses, it would not be an exaggeration to say that if it were not for the sudden truce, the NKR troops would soon have to fight the advancing Azerbaijani army with only small arms.
High-ranking NKR military officials claim that Russia's intervention and the signing of a peace treaty helped save a 30-strong group of Armenians from complete encirclement and defeat and spared tens of thousands of civilians from the massacre, even at the cost of losing part of their territories.
In Armenia and among a significant part of the Armenian diaspora, including the Russian one, revanchist sentiments are strong. The most stubborn figures believe that “the Armenians should have lost Artsakh in battles, but retained their honor,” despite the fact that they themselves talk about honor from the comfort of their warm sofas, but not from the trenches with machine guns in their hands.
In Yerevan, the same street thugs who brought Pashinyan to power two and a half years ago are now demanding his blood and an immediate revision of the peace agreements amid bellicose cries about continuing the war to a victorious end.
As one would expect, the armchair and street revanchists who were at the extreme in the defeat of the NKR army and the surrender of territories again found themselves in Russia, which did not send an army to protect the fraternal people, did not kick Aliyev, did not expel the Turks and did not ultimately return Ararat and the Ararat Valley to its affiliation .
They do not remember that Ararat, part of the NKR and other polymers were lost by the same loudmouths without the help of Russia, as well as the unfortunate fact that Armenia became one of the initiators of the collapse of the USSR. I would like to note that some people in the post-Soviet space very misunderstand the meaning of state sovereignty and the distribution of roles after 1991.
Well, that is, according to some, “independence” is when the proud bearers of an ancient culture seceded from a single country, expelled or seriously limited the rights of national minorities on their territory, invited Soros, USAID and the US Army biological laboratories to visit them, and entered the program NATO "Partnership for Peace", installed idols of Nazi collaborators and organized a small-town government of Russophobes and street loudmouths. And don’t Russia dare interfere in their affairs!
But as soon as it gets hot in the most sensitive places, Russia is already obliged at the first whistle to “come and protect” the “proud and free”. Because brothers, it turns out. But the brothers haven’t grown up for 30 years and they don’t understand that sovereignty is for adults who can use their brains and be responsible for their actions.
The question is, who prevented the ruling circles of Armenia, including those from Karabakh, from reaching an agreement with Azerbaijan on the peaceful return of the occupied territories? After all, there were as many as 26 years left! During this time, it was possible not only to give 7 regions to Baku, but also to return their own, which had come under the control of Azerbaijan. But the bad dancers were constantly hampered by something, such as greatly inflated national pride and lingering dizziness from old military successes.
It is very significant that the military collapse of the NKR forced even the violent Pashinyan and his entourage to sober up, who invited the stubborn oppositionists to officially advocate for the abolition of Russian mediation, the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from the contact line and the continuation of the war.
You don’t need to go to your grandmother to imagine all the consequences of putting into practice the wishes of the Armenian “hawks”: the NKR will not exist even in a reduced form, and the Turks will also be registered in Karabakh. And, since the NKR army is virtually destroyed, the regular army of Armenia will have to oppose the Azerbaijani-Turkish alliance, unleashing an interstate conflict. And this, as you might guess, runs counter to the agreements on alliance and assistance through the CSTO. In Tehran, if anything, such behavior will not be understood either.
It is noteworthy that the Armenian opposition does not want to take responsibility and make official statements about the continuation of the war, pushing Pashinyan, who is already mired in sins, to commit suicide. They say that he will not be spared - one more screw-up, one less, but the small circumstance that some other Armenians will have to fight in splendid isolation with the Aliyev-Erdogan alliance - this simple thought does not enter the hot heads of the opportunists.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also had to abruptly shut up the fountain of eloquence of the former Soviet pop singer, and now the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Russia, Polad Bul-Bul-ogly, who said that the loss of a Russian helicopter and the death of people is “in war, as in war.”
The ambassador was reminded that if the situation had been “in war, as in war,” then the response from “Baku” would have come in a completely different form than an urgent request for a truce, and it would not have seemed a little belligerent. If you don’t believe me, ask Saakashvili.
By the way, this warning applies to any scum that tries to attack Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh.
I really want to hope that the incomplete defeat of Armenia in the NKR will cool down hotheads on both sides and force them to radically reconsider their priorities. Because Russia, losing its sons in someone else’s war, comes to the rescue and brings peace, while in the blessed West, if they do anything, it is exclusively talking in favor of the poor.
So it’s time for us to stop playing at charity and help only states that are unconditionally loyal to Russia.
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