2023 August 22

Daily news wrap-up

Political infighting in Nagorno-Karabakh; Different factions explained || Why Armenia and Ukraine desperately need Su-30SM and F-16 jets; Interview with military expert Artsrun Hovhannisyan || Unemployment stats
by ar_david_hh

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11 minutes.

is it true that the U.S. blocked a resolution during the UN Security Council session?

Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan: Thankfully the UNSC session was public so we were able to hear the opinions of the U.S. and other members. I think today the world clearly sees Azerbaijan's attempts to carry out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.

You asked if the U.S. was hindering the passage of a resolution. I don't think the U.S. has any plans or wants to contribute to this ethnic cleansing. It would be hard for me to imagine that.

I believe and I hope that the U.S. understands the magnitude of the worsening humanitarian crisis, and I hope the U.S. understands that a possible resolution would help resolve this situation and bring the parties back to the negotiation table.

[source;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcMzMWjvQ6s)

political infighting in Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh's former State Minister (prime minister) Ruben Vardanyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire who recently moved to Nagorno-Karabakh, is urging President Arayik Harutyunyan to "keep his promise" and resign. The President's allies have threatened to retaliate in case steps are taken to force the President's resignation.

Analyst Suren Surenyants: Here is what happened. They drafted a consensus scenario, the first step of which was quite illogical. They appointed the leader of the smallest opposition party [ARF] as the head of parliament.

Then President Harutyunyan changed his mind midway and refused to give the rest of his powers to the parliament leader. He imitated a resignation.

President Harutyunyan has been a weak leader. He has been under the influence of two factions from the beginning: 1) Ex-president Bako Sahakyan, 2) Pashinyan's man Masis Mayilyan.

Bako Sahakyan and Masis Mayilyan became "shareholders" in Harutyunyan's government. He tried to appease all parties by handing out positions.

The biggest problem with Harutyunyan is his lack of vision for the resolution of the crisis. He isn't making any decisions. Only speeches.

Only Samvel Babayan has proposed a specific plan. I may not agree with all the points, but at least he has a plan. It's about launching a dialogue with Azerbaijan.

The other politicians, like Ruben Vardanyan, say the right things but don't have a plan for achieving their goals.

Sergey Lavrov recently proposed a [14-point plan](https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/15t4sml/un_security_council_discusses_azerbaijans/) for the integration of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians into Azerbaijan. It is worse than Lavrov's [March 2023](https://massispost.com/2023/03/sergey-lavrov-proposes-donbas-and-kosovo-serbian-local-self-government-models-for-nagorno-karabakh/) statement about creating a Kosovo Serbian self-government model for Armenians. To those who have already torched Lavrov's document: Do we have a better proposal? We do not.

Lavrov's document doesn't envisage any status for Nagorno-Karabakh as a subject, and no political autonomy. It's about weak municipal-level rights or proportional rights. The mayor of Stepanakert could be Armenian, but there is no guarantee Baku won't arrest him the next day for any reason.

Russia proposed this plan so it could extend its peacekeeping mandate so at least the physical existence of Armenians could be guaranteed.

All of this assumes that Azerbaijan would agree to it, which is not guaranteed.

Reporter: What do various power circles of Nagorno-Karabakh want? President Harutyunyan avoids decision-making at any cost. Ruben Vardanyan, who speaks on behalf of ex-presidents of Nagorno-Karabakh, does he support Lavrov's plan?

Surenyants: They don't even know what they want. I hear a lot of political jargon. If we are going to replace Harutyunyan, then the replacement must at least have a realistic plan and not simply make statements about "we must resist".

There are two realistic options:

(1) We settle with guarantees that Armenians will physically exist (without a status).

(2) We develop norms for coexistence with Azeris.

Reporter: Samvel Babayan, the biggest opposition figure, has been sidelined, but he has proposed a plan to hold a dialogue with Azerbaijan to discuss coexistence. If the pressure on Harutyunyan increases, could he eventually make a deal with Samvel Babayan?

Surenyants: Yes. That would be the last resort for him, and he is quickly approaching that point, by judging from internal developments.

But it's also possible that Samvel Babayan, Harutyunyan, and others could unite and form a crisis management group that would operate on the basis of consensus. There was a proposal to form one earlier.

There are three power circles in Nagorno-Karabakh today:

(1) President Harutyunyan and his team.

(2) Ruben Vardanyan, Bako Sahakyan, Arkadiy Ghukasyan (ex-presidents).

(3) Samvel Babayan.

Ideally, they will form a consensus group and draft a specific plan of action that would describe their vision for NK-AZ relations and what NK believes is necessary to guarantee the coexistence with Azerbaijan and the protection of Armenians in NK.

[source;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeOSZTOkQNg)

interview with ranking Armenian government official Andranik Kocharyan

REPORTER: Ruben Vardanyan has accused the Armenian government of abandoning Nagorno-Karabakh.

ANDRANIK: Ruben Vardanyan is confusing Nagorno-Karabakh with Tatarstan. We stand with the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

REPORTER: Vardanyan is demanding the resignation of President Harutyunyan. In response, Harutyunyan's ruling party released a statement in support of the President, accusing Vardanyan of lacking statesmanship.

ANDRANIK: Do you remember the mysterious appearance of Ruben Vardanyan in Nagorno-Karabakh? Now we see his inexplicable behavior. Who is Ruben Vardanyan, and what is he doing in Nagorno-Karabakh? He revealed a shadowy process that our publics were unaware of. What secret dinner did they have and what was discussed during the dinner?

REPORTER: There were 8 people...

ANDRANIK: I know the names of those 8 people. He is very good at uploading photos and videos about the Armenian world, homeland Nagorno-Karabakh, but his statements about the past, present, and future are so contradictory that the dog doesn't recognize its owner.

He then reveals himself in the form of Prince Hamlet and announces that 8 people were attempting to force the president to resign.

REPORTER: Why?

ANDRANIK: For the power to be transferred to the current president of the parliament [minority ARF]. ARF has only 3 elected members in parliament. What is the point of transferring the power to them? What will that solve?

Is it possible that their true intention is to manufacture a political crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh so they can transfer the crisis to Armenia? That won't happen. I'm confident that Harutyunyan won't resign. I welcome the statement by the ruling party aimed at Vardanyan.

Vardanyan should focus on collecting the stones from the church's backyard and dream about the Armenian Homeland. This is not the time for մունդռիկություն: These 8 figures should keep calm and contribute to the resolution of the ongoing crisis instead.

REPORTER: Are they attempting to give the presidential powers to ARF so it can better rally the Diaspora?

ANDRANIK: Why aren't they doing it today? The lao is still asleep. They can't even form unity around the Yerevan municipality elections. That's because people can see through it.

REPORTER: Who took part in the mysterious 8-person dinner?

ANDRANIK: Representatives of the former governments of Nagorno-Karabakh and former military apparatus members. It was 7+1, with the "+1" being Ruben Vardanyan, whose appearance in Nagorno-Karabakh is still a mystery.

REPORTER: What was the dinner about?

ANDRANIK: To capture power in Armenia. They couldn't do it from within Armenia, so they are trying to use Nagorno-Karabakh as a backdoor. That's why they push the propaganda that the "Armenian government has abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh". They are attacking the peace process, suggesting that "we don't need it". We do, in fact, need peace, so Armenia can restore its power. But they don't give a shit about restoring our losses. Their goal is to come to power. Life is not life if they don't have a chair.

Nagorno-Karabakh is the most important thing for Armenia today. It is the castle for our statehood. We've done everything possible to create the conditions to allow Armenians to continue to live in Nagorno-Karabakh. The [gang of 8], on the other hand, is busy with disheartening the population by claiming "war is coming soon", "this is the end". The best way to prevent war is to prepare for it while promoting peace. The opposition is sabotaging our efforts at every step: don't negotiate, don't open borders [with Turkey], don't try this and that. Their goal is to minimize the surface of diplomatic contact. These people still think we live in 1994. What we need is to end the practice of fearmongering the population and instill confidence instead.

REPORTER: Are certain foreign powers [Russia] controlling the group of 8 in Nagorno-Karabakh?

ANDRANIK: Yes. Many superpowers have interests in our region. They want certain logistics and roads. They want loyal politicians who were fed with their promises for years. This is a matter of national security. Do you see how many wartime traitors authorities have uncovered so far? What does that tell us?

REPORTER: The government has decided to establish a new foreign intelligence agency focused on external threats due to the insufficient performance of other intelligence agencies before the war. How will its quality be any different if the agents continue to train in Russia?

ANDRANIK: They will undergo training in Armenia. In certain situations, when they are forced to train abroad, it will be done in a strictly monitored environment.

REPORTER: ... in Russia?

ANDRANIK: Not necessarily. We just want our agents to have complete loyalty to the Republic of Armenia.

REPORTER: Is it safe to fly jets to Kapan airport considering its proximity to Azerbaijan border?

ANDRANIK: My Azeri counterpart has made threats toward the airport. Excuse me, but who is he? Why is he telling us not to fly jets within our country? We will expose Azerbaijan's terroristic behavior. There will be consequences if Azerbaijan shoots down a civilian jet.

REPORTER: Before the launch of flights to our Kapan airport, Azerbaijan was complaining about Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians jamming Azeri jets. Were they lying to build a ground for provocation?

ANDRANIK: Then let's bring international observers to find out what's going on and who is telling the truth. The U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group was offering observers before the 2020 war. He wanted to use drones and other tech to monitor the NK-AZ borders. We could proceed with that plan today if Azerbaijan is concerned about "shots" fired by Armenians.

[source;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RM9wiMpBY0)

why Armenia and Ukraine need Su-30SM and F-16 jets: interview with military expert Artsrun Hovhannisyan

ARTSUN: We should have acquired them sooner. Let's revisit this topic now that Ukraine is going to receive F-16 jets. Why is F-16 still so important if Ukraine has already received numerous modern weapons?

In modern warfare, unless you want to sit in the same place and take a beating, you must have air superiority. For that, you must have jets. It's amateur talk that you can replace jets with drones or air-defense batteries.

The jet will help you clear and monitor the air, and carry out strikes from the air.

Let's study the Ukraine example. Ukraine has already received winged (cruise) missiles like StormShadow that are launched from a jet. They will soon receive the German Taurus.

These missiles are long-range, but Ukraine's weakness is its aircraft fleet which cannot take full advantage of them. [Su-24 can carry those cruise missiles](https://www.eurasiantimes.com/its-official-ukrainian-su-24-fencer-fighter-jets-are-launchin/).

2-4 units of Su-24 can take off simultaneously, receive protection from F-16 or something else, and safely climb high enough and get close enough for their missiles to be maximally successful.

Instead, Ukraine is currently launching Su-24 jets one by one from secret airfields. They fly close to the ground in order to go undetected by the Russian airforce. Eventually, they climb <500 meters and fire 1-2 cruise missiles. This is only enough for the missiles to travel half of their intended range, around 150 km. If the Su-24 could climb >4 km, the missiles would fly 300 km.

To make this strategy work, before Su-24's main missile strike, Ukraine is attempting to synchronize a pre-strike by launching decoy missiles or drones to smother Russia's air defenses. The U.S. army does this "preparatory work" for 6-9 hours before the main strike.

Now, what would happen if Ukraine had F-16s? F-16 would take care of Russian Su-30 and Su-35, which is another topic of discussion. This would give the Su-24 fleet a narrow window of opportunity to climb a few kilometers. Ukraine would still need to fire decoy missiles, like the MALD that they used recently. After firing 40 decoy missiles and overwhelming Russia's air defense, 4-10 units of Su-24 could climb and fire 10-20 StormShadow missiles, which would then travel long enough and would have the maximum effectiveness.

Second example. Ukraine complains about Russia's Ka-52 helicopters. Russia is proud of their performance. Why? It's a similar situation that Armenia faced during the 2020 war, in which our main problem wasn't the Bayraktar drone, but rather Azeri Mi-8 helicopters equipped with Israeli SPIKE NLOS missiles that targeted our air defense batteries, vehicles, artillery, and tanks. Russia is attempting the same with its Ka-52 helicopters.

The Russian helicopter climbs only 400-1000 meters to evade Ukraine's air defense with a 30-40 km range. They launch missiles with a 10-12 km range.

Ukrainian battalions and even brigades on the frontline do not possess expensive air defense batteries with a 30 km range because they would be destroyed by Russian artillery. Therefore, Ukraine lacks the means to take down those Russian helicopters. Frontline troops do have smaller and cheaper things like MANPADs, OSA, and Strela-10, but these are not powerful enough to reach the Russian helicopters.

What is the solution? My friends. The king of air superiority is the jet. Your jet can remain deep within your territory and destroy the enemy helicopter even if the latter is only at a 500m altitude. The jet is the only practical solution.

This is why Armenia needed/needs the Su-30 jets. That's how you destroy those Azeri Mi-8 helicopters carrying SPIKE NLOS. There is simply no other solution in this situation. Armenia must have a strong aviation doctrine.

Ukraine's counteroffensive is slow partially due to a lack of [F-16] jets. What could the F-16 do against the revered Russian Su-35S w/Irbis radio, Su-30SM, and MiG-31? When you pit them 1v1, the Su-35S could outperform the likely-outdated version of the F-16 that Ukraine will receive. But the reality is that the Western airforce is applied with a specific doctrine that couples the use of jets with strong intel, radio, and other pieces of information that are passed to Ukraine remotely by its allies.

For example, if the Netherlands ends up sending the older generation of F-16 jets, which are also possessed by Turkey, with only 70-90 km AMRAAM millies, Ukraine's Western allies could still use their own air control system AWACS and other methods of intel to detect targets far away and feed the info to F-16.

This is something that Russia lacks. Russia doesn't have a developed satellite and AWAC system integrated with its airforce. Besides that, the missiles that give the Russian airforce a long reach, are very very few in number.

Armenia did receive some missiles for its Su-30SM jets, and we were supposed to import those long-range R-77 and XA-59 missiles from Russia next, but as you can see from the Ukraine war, Russia can't even produce them for its own army in significant quantities.

When Armenia purchased the Su-30SM, these missiles were still undergoing tests in Russia. Russia told us they weren't ready for use. *"We will give them to you when they are ready."*

Read the Russian defense ministry report and see how many Xa-59 missiles are used weekly. Very few. Armenia was expecting to import those missiles. That's a little background for you.

If Ukraine imports 3-5 squadrons of F-16 connected to NATO's extremely-developed radio/intel apparatus... The U.S. has the world's most developed system. For every 1 combat aircraft, they have 1 piece of equipment or a jet that provides intel and radio warfare support to the combat aircraft. No other country has that ratio. In Russia, every 1,000 combat aircraft has 50 pieces of supportive equipment/jets. NATO can help Ukraine in this department, just as they help HIMARSes to strike their targets.

Up next: We'll discuss the importance of air doctrine for Armenia.

[source;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3_jGBTrhok)

Belgium sends its foreign minister to Armenia for the first time in 8 years

Belgian FM: We have 30,000 proud Armenian-Belgians. Several Belgian companies want to invest in Armenia. They will hold meetings with Armenian businesses in October.

Belgium believes that negotiations and compromises are the only solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I will convey the same message to my Azeri colleague later this week. //

Belgium will open an embassy in Armenia. The foreign minister visited wounded Armenian soldiers.

[source;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqcfpv9OQv0) [source;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAuStHtEJg4)

government wants parents to install car seats for kids

Interior Ministry: Children under 7 must use a car seat. Those over 7 must use a seat belt.

Leading cause of death among residents aged 15-19: Car accidents.

The second cause of death among the 5-14 age group: Car accidents.

The likelihood of death drops significantly if your kid is in a car seat.

Kids under 1: -70%

Kids older than 1: -80%

If a child over the age of 10 is wearing a seatbelt: -70%

[source;](https://factor.am/679442.html)

Armenia's unemployment rate in the first quarter of the year (compared to Georgia)

2023 Q1: 13.7% (18.0%)

2022 Q1: 14.8% (19.4%)

2021 Q1: 17.0% (21.9%)

In both countries, the unemployment rate is the highest during the Q1 period of the year.

[source;](https://arka.am/en/news/economy/unemployment_rate_in_armenia_in_q1_amounted_to_13_7_of_labor_force_edb_review/) [source;](https://tradingeconomics.com/armenia/unemployment-rate)

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Link to original report and comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/15yti88/political_infighting_in_nagornokarabakh_different/