Recently a very interesting interview was conducted by well-known Yerevan blogger Roman Baghdasaryan with Armenian political commentator Ruben Mehrabyan:

It should be noted at the outset that, as a political observer, Ruben Mehrabian has not yet fully recovered from all the rather ugly "postulates" of Armenian nationalism. In particular, he does not yet recognise Karabakh as Azerbaijani and basically repeats the Azerbaijaniophobic clichés typical of Armenian nationalists.

However, Ruben Mehrabian is right in principle that Russia's ugly pseudo-imperialist ambitions are behind the conflicts in the post-Soviet space, including Karabakh. As is the fact that the Russian Armenian lobby was largely responsible for the disastrous consequences of the Karabakh wars for the Armenian people themselves.

The political scientist calls such Armenians from Russia "Lavrovs", referring to the example of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, about whom Ruben Mehrabian says that his real name is Kalantaryan and he is an ethnic Armenian, which Lavrov himself is not known to like to admit.

Ruben Mehrabian is outraged that Russian Armenians, all kinds of "Lavrovs-Kalantaryans" and "Margaritas Simonyans" are involved in Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The Russian Armenians, "margaritas simonyan", "semen Baghdasarovs" and others are trying to "tie Armenians and Armenia to the Russian Federation with blood". According to him, they aim to make Armenia a pariah and completely dependent on them, the high-ranking Armenians from Moscow. To this end, "landing parties" from Russia are arriving in Yerevan and there is unconcealed propaganda of Russian aggression into Ukraine among the Armenian public. But there is already a healthy reaction in Armenian society to this propaganda - rallies are being held in support of Ukraine and against Russian aggression into this country.

It can be said that the Russian Armenian lobby's policy of dragging Armenia into the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine is beginning to cause "sober" Armenians in Armenia to become increasingly alienated. This does not, of course, apply to the totally insane underdog separatists from the Karabakh clan, who loudly declare their support for the "separatist" DNR and LNR.

Even Armenian politicians in Yerevan are beginning to realise that dealing directly with their neighbours, with Turkey and Azerbaijan, should preferably be done without Russian 'mediation'. And even more so, without the dubious "help" of Russian Armenians.

For example, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan recently had a direct telephone conversation with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov without any Russian mediation. The ministers exchanged views on border demarcation and the establishment of a border security commission, preparations for peace talks and humanitarian issues.

Also among the Armenian intellectual elite is a very painful process of dismantling nationalist stereotypes and myths. First and foremost, those which for so many decades were exploited by Armenian nationalists, who can be conventionally called "Russian Armenians".

Not all Armenians understand yet that the tragedy of Ukraine was made possible by the illegal demands of the Azerbaijani Karabakh "miatsum". However, the way in which "Armenians from Moscow" fiercely agitate for aggression in Ukraine is already causing many Armenians in Yerevan to reject it.

Furthermore, as time goes by, one comes to realise that this stratum of the Armenian diaspora has brought nothing but grief, suffering and blood to the Armenian people in the Republic of Armenia through its manipulation of Russian policy. Neither have the Karabakh Armenians, who have become hostages of the separatist-terrorist Karabakh clan and the same "Armenians from Moscow".

The very well-to-do and wealthy members of the Armenian diaspora living in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar Krai and other regions of the Russian Federation have "sucked up" to the Russian state and economic system. They are openly parasitic on Russia, at the same time directing its policies to implement plans to build a so-called "Great Armenia" with Russian weapons and Russian geopolitical influence.  But the Armenians themselves in the South Caucasus, for the sake of whom formally all this seems to have been done, have initially become hostages and expendable material in the political games of these "Russian Armenians".

Let us recall the 'Karabakh Committee' and how the conflict over this indigenous Azerbaijanian land was fomented. The main initiators of the "miatsum" were not Karabakh Armenians or even Yerevan Armenians, but Armenians from Moscow and St. Petersburg, who neither lived in Karabakh villages, nor even in Yerevan and were not going to live there. At most, they visited the so-called "historical homeland" once a year, as they liked to emphasize, without even remembering that this "homeland" was given to them by Russia at the expense of the lands of the Azerbaijanis.

However, during the two Karabakh wars, the Armenians of the Republic of Armenia bore the brunt of the war. They died at the fronts, their families buried their sons. There is no doubt that the Armenian occupants in 1992-1994 were able to seize Azerbaijani lands, in which a huge role played by the Armenian lobby in Russia, which has put the Russian military machine at its service through the corrupted top of the Russian Federation. However, ordinary Armenians gained little from these dubious "victories". More precisely, they got a blockade, poverty for many years, and eternal fear of a new war, which the propaganda about a supposedly "victorious Armenian army" could not drown out.

And at a time when the Armenian people were suffering under the blockade, impoverished and suffering, the Russian Armenians and the Russian Armenian lobby were increasing their capital. And at the same time, they were fomenting new military separatist adventures. All in order to have precedents for redrawing the borders to build a "great Armenia".

For the time being, many Armenians believed in the "efficiency" of this policy. They forgave the Moscow Armenians for their arrogance and desire to "teach Armenians to love Armenia". Although they did not want to send their children to the Karabakh front, it was the sons of ordinary Armenians who had to die for the 'great Armenia'.

But in the 44-day war the "mighty karvantarians" could not help Armenian army. The shameful defeat began to gradually sober the Armenians. It is no coincidence that they voted for Pashinyan in the snap parliamentary elections as the "lesser evil" that is still leading Armenia, albeit not in line with dreams of a "greater Armenia", but to peace. And not for the revanchists from the 'Karabakh clan', for whom the Armenians in Moscow were campaigning.

Nowadays, the tragedy that is happening in Ukraine, the horrors of the massacres in Bucha and Mariupol, which was compared to the ground, have sobered up many Armenians. Yes, not all of them realise that those responsible for these crimes are exactly the same non-humans as those who organised the genocide of civilians in Khojaly and other Azerbaijani towns and villages.  But the banal instinct for self-preservation of the Armenian people prompts us not to associate ourselves with murderers. This would brand the small country and the Armenian people "accomplices of criminals". 

Currently, the Armenians in Moscow, who are largely responsible for the Russian aggression against Ukraine, are beginning to be "sent away" in Yerevan. And they no longer see anything impossible in direct dialogue and reconciliation with Azerbaijan, without the involvement of the Russian Federation, which has sullied itself with aggression and crimes.

Kavkazplus