After the SCO summit in Samarkand on September 15-16, 2022 and the visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Yerevan on September 18, 2022, events began to develop rapidly and according to a previously unforeseen scenario.

Totally unexpectedly for many, the separatists and collaborators in the occupied territories of Ukraine raised questions about "referendums", with the subsequent annexation of these territories by the Russian Federation. Moreover, a referendum was also announced in Zaporizhzhia region, despite the fact that the Russian occupants control only its southern part, without controlling the regional centre of Zaporizhzhia and its suburbs, where most of the population of this region lives. In other words, as a result of the so-called "referendum", the residents of Ukrainian Zaporizhzhya, which today is mercilessly shelled by Russian missiles (the 5th largest city in Ukraine after Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro and Lviv) will be declared to have allegedly "voted to join Russia" and will be "protected" by Russia as its "new citizens".

" The referendums" were scheduled for 23-27 September 2022. On 21 September 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin made an address and announced a "partial" military mobilization in the country, which immediately became a total mobilization.

The Russian army "enlists" literally everyone: those who have never served, the sick, the disabled, fathers of large families, etc.  The Russian Federation repeats the lawlessness that was committed by the occupants in the separatist so-called DNR and LNR, where according to eyewitness accounts in some villages it is impossible to find men in the street, where only women and children are found. All men have been mobilized and sent "to the slaughter" at the front. Tens of thousands are being killed, as no one even thinks of preparing them for combat operations, nor of arming and equipping them properly.

A similar prospect may await the "national" republics of the Russian Federation. There is a direct order to conduct not a "partial" but total mobilization of all men in Dagestan and other North Caucasian republics, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Tuva and Yakutia-Sakha. Protests have already erupted against such a policy, especially in Dagestan, where people are beginning to speak of a planned "ethnocide" of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

The Armenian and pro-Armenian media are almost unresponsive to all this mayhem. Almost unnoticed was the previously announced landmark meeting in Echmiadzin on 22 September. The meeting, closed to the press and chaired by Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II, known for his ties with the Russian Armenian lobby, was attended by former presidents Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan and former separatist leaders of the so-called "Artsakh" Arkady Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan. Meanwhile, it was previously said that the second, "pro-Western" Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia, Aram the First, was also due to take part in the meeting.  But at the last moment he "for some reason" refused to participate. Or he was "turned down". Nor did the media give almost any details of the topics raised at the meeting.

"A discussion took place in connection with the current situation in Armenia. It was decided to continue the meetings," a brief and dry statement issued by the Echmiadzin press office at the end of the meeting said.

However, there are some very worrying indirect signs.  Realistically, with the so-called "referendums" in the occupied territories of Ukraine, with their subsequent annexation, a scenario with impending territorial remodelling and annexations in the South Caucasus can be implemented. All the more so as the precedent of "international law being totally trampled on by military boots" will be set. And everything can be carried out just as suddenly, swiftly and abruptly.

Let us recall that back in the spring of this year, when they just started talking about possible "referendums on joining to Russia" on the occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine, a real wave of "hope for Russia" swept over the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers in Azerbaijani Karabakh. It went so far as to have the letter Z lined with Russian flags near the famous "us and our mountains" monument in Khankendi. The Kremlin's main propagandist Margarita Simonyan enthusiastically reported about it with the words "Karabakh is Russia". Kavkazplus" wrote about the separatists' action in the article "Artsakh separatists are following the ship Moscow! (https://kavkazplus.com/news.php?id=36101).

Precisely at that time, the separatists in Khankendi started saying that, like the occupied regions of Ukraine, the so-called 'Artsakh' could also hold a 'referendum' and join Russia, because 'Armenians have no other hope except Russia'.

However, the issue of "referendums" in the occupied Ukrainian territories then receded into the background.  And after the recent aggravation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the Armenian side's futile attempts to draw Russia into military action, the "hope for Russians" was replaced by overt Russophobia and statements that "Russia betrayed Armenia and 'Artsakh'". Anti-Russian demonstrations swept the streets of Armenian cities during Nancy Pelosi's visit to Yerevan.

Now Armenia is still in euphoria over alleged "American support" after Nancy Pelosi's theatrical tears at the "genocide" memorial. The fact that there may be a "referendum on joining the Russian Federation" in "Artsakh", by analogy with the occupied Ukrainian territories, is also kept silent. But there is a clear "transfer" of Armenian mobilisation resources from Russia to Armenia.

According to some reports, Russian border guards have no problem letting ethnic Armenians through the border, even those subject to mobilisation, while "detaining" representatives of other nationalities, especially Georgians and North Caucasians, in the RF. At the same time, there is a campaign to "hand out passports" of the Republic of Armenia to those Armenians travelling from Russia who do not yet have Russian citizenship. "An Armenian must defend Armenia," they say bluntly to Armenians, citizens of the Russian Federation, who travel abroad from Russia, not wanting to be mobilised.

Meanwhile, events are set to unfold rapidly next. On 27 September 2022, "referendums" will end, with the results of which the population of Ukraine's occupied territories will allegedly "vote" for "reunification with Russia". On September 28-29, 2022, all the necessary "formalities" for the annexation of these territories to Russia will be carried out, including Zaporizhzhia, which is free of occupation and will immediately be declared "the occupied territory of Ukraine of Russia".

A speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin has already been announced for 30 September.  He is expected to give Ukraine an ultimatum to clear "new regions of the Russian Federation" of its troops within 24 hours. Otherwise the Russian Federation will officially declare war on Ukraine and impose martial law. Also, recently, Kremlin propagandists have been explicitly saying that to "protect" the new "Russian lands," the Russian Federation may launch nuclear strikes on Ukraine.

In essence, the Kremlin is going for broke. And this insane adventure, especially with nuclear blackmail, is apparently the initiative of the Armenian lobby. In any case, the same Margarita Simonyan says that the Russian Federation "has no other way out" but a nuclear war, almost every day.

Apparently, if the adventure of referendums, annexation of Ukrainian territories and nuclear blackmail succeeds, this experience will be instantly used in the South Caucasus.  The "Artsakh" separatists will also announce a "referendum" on "joining Russia", in order to "save Armenians from genocide". The more so as Russian peacekeepers are already on the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh. The Russian peacekeepers, which have been considerably undermanned due to the transfer to the "Ukrainian front", will be urgently "replenished" at the expense of those mobilized in Russia.  Immediately after the so-called "referendum" they will announce "annexation of Artsakh to Russia" and the "peacekeepers" will be instantly transformed into occupiers and "take the new Russian territory and its new citizens under protection". Nuclear blackmail will already start towards Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia.  At the same time, a military operation to "force a corridor" from the Russian Federation to Armenia and "Artsakh" through Georgia, with a "referendum" on the "annexation to the Russian Federation" of the Armenian separatists of Samtskhe-Javakheti, is unfolding.

The fact that such a scenario is quite possible is indirectly confirmed by some materials in the pro-Armenian media. For example, eadaily published an article "Georgia should ponder: denazification is on the agenda" with aggressively anti-Georgian content that contains direct threats to Georgia and allusions to "denazification" i.e. direct military aggression. It should also be taken into account that the citizens of Russian Federation of Armenian nationality that are easily let into the territory of Georgia by the Russian border guards (unlike ethnic Georgians with Russian passports) do not always go further to Armenia and for some reason "settle down" in Georgia. No one knows how many FSB agents and potential members of subversive groups among them, who would be instantly activated in case of invasion.

This scenario can, in principle, only be realized if Ukraine "gives in to blackmail", pressure from Russia (including nuclear) and capitulates. If not, the Kremlin's whole adventure with mobilization and annexation of new territories will end in complete failure and the process of Russia's own collapse will be launched. That is why the Armenian lobby "waits" and does not launch the "annexation of Artsakh to Russia" scenario until it is 100% sure that the adventure in Ukraine will succeed. But they still have "backups", but this time relying on the U.S., the new masters of Armenia.

Giorgi Mazniashvili