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"By sacrificing Armenia, Putin is making the same mistake as the Byzantine Empire against the Turks"

2023-05-03T13:09:45.628Z


FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE - Historian Aram Mardirossian draws a historical parallel between the current situation in Armenia and the Turkish invasion of 1071, under the Byzantine Empire. According to him, the head of the Kremlin, like Emperor Basil II, takes the risk of favoring Turkish expansion by abandoning...


Aram Mardirossian is associate professor at the law faculties of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the chair of Rights and Institutions of Eastern Christianity.

If “history does not go over the dishes”, it often serves up dishes with a very bitter taste.

By leaving Armenia – let's not even talk about Artsakh – to be a little more destroyed every day by Turkey and Azerbaijan, reckoning that it would thus be all the more slavishly subjugated to them, Vladimir Putin is committing mutatis

mutandis

the same error conceded a thousand years ago by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II the Macedonian (976-1025).

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The Eastern Roman Empire – very wrongly called Byzantine – had reached the peak of its power during the reign of this

basileus

who was the most illustrious offspring of an imperial dynasty of Armenian origin!

Military genius, outstanding administrator, he managed to crush the Bulgarians and the Muslim powers.

However, he committed a major political mistake whose devastating effects will be felt in the long term.

Thinking thus to increase the greatness of his empire and his personal glory, he suppressed the Armenian independence carefully respected by the two most glorious Roman emperors, Constantine and Heraclius.

In doing so, Basil II not only revived the disastrous authoritarianism of a Justinian.

He repudiated a principle clearly established since Augustus: the intermediate position of Armenia between the Empire and the powers of the Middle East.

if

imagining that they were strong enough to fight against the Muslim states without the help of the Armenians, Basil II and his successors grossly misunderstood the millennial role of Armenia, a barrier of civilization against the barbarism of the steppes.

The Macedonian actually started the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

Less than half a century after his death, the disaster of Manazkert in 1071 against the Seljuks marked the beginning of the surge of Turkish tribes in Anatolia.

Then begins a long Stations of the Cross which will end with the fall of Constantinople on Tuesday, May 29, 1453.

half a century after his death, the disaster of Manazkert in 1071 against the Seljuks marks the beginning of the surge of Turkish tribes in Anatolia.

Then begins a long Stations of the Cross which will end with the fall of Constantinople on Tuesday, May 29, 1453.

half a century after his death, the disaster of Manazkert in 1071 against the Seljuks marks the beginning of the surge of Turkish tribes in Anatolia.

Then begins a long Stations of the Cross which will end with the fall of Constantinople on Tuesday, May 29, 1453.

For many years Vladimir Putin supplied arms to Baku before leaving the Armenians alone to face the Turko-Azeris and their jihadist thugs in the fall of 2020.

Aram Mardirossian

For many years Vladimir Putin supplied arms to Baku before leaving the Armenians alone to face the Turko-Azeris and their jihadist thugs in the fall of 2020. He finally stepped in when the Armenian “fruit” – largely defeated but not yet fully driven out of Artsakh – seemed ripe to him.

On the one hand, it thus punished the Armenians who, since 2018, had expressed the desire for rapprochement with the West under the leadership of Nikol Pashinyan whose political action, more generally, constitutes in the best of cases a summit incompetence and, at worst, unforgivable treachery.

On the other hand, Putin gained a foothold deeper in the South Caucasus by installing 2,000 Russian blue helmet soldiers in the territories that Azerbaijan had just reoccupied.

Read alsoArmenia, a story between two fires

Alas, leaving Armenia so weakened in the face of its mortal enemies, whose final objective is to annihilate it entirely, constitutes a serious mistake for the interests of Moscow.

It becomes clearer every day that the main beneficiaries of the cynical Russian maneuver of 2020 are first and foremost Ankara and Baku.

The Turks, so long after being driven out, were able to re-enter the South Caucasus.

The Azeris who represent Shiite Tatars – whose country has only been known as Azerbaijan since 1918 – are currently ruled by a tyrant with hubris syndrome.

Since his victory in the 44-day war due mainly to Turkish and Israeli drones, and following the Ukrainian bog of Russia, the bloodthirsty dictator,

who has raised anti-Armenian hatred to the rank of state doctrine, no longer hesitates to challenge Putin!

Baku violates with impunity the agreement of November 9, 2020 – or rather the Armenian capitulation – concluded between Pashinyan and Aliyev under the aegis of Russia.

Thus, the Berdzor corridor (Lachin), which represents the only road linking Artsakh to Armenia, has been blocked since December 12, 2022. The pseudo-Azerbaijani environmental activists who had launched this terrorist action were then replaced by soldiers. .

Better still, they have recently illegally set up a checkpoint along this corridor, not without taking the liberty of prohibiting Russian soldiers – who are supposed to be the masters of the place – from using it!

agreement of November 9, 2020 – or rather the Armenian capitulation – concluded between Pashinyan and Aliyev under the aegis of Russia.

Thus, the Berdzor corridor (Lachin), which represents the only road linking Artsakh to Armenia, has been blocked since December 12, 2022. The pseudo-Azerbaijani environmental activists who had launched this terrorist action were then replaced by soldiers. .

Better still, they have recently illegally set up a checkpoint along this corridor, not without taking the liberty of prohibiting Russian soldiers – who are supposed to be the masters of the place – from using it!

agreement of November 9, 2020 – or rather the Armenian capitulation – concluded between Pashinyan and Aliyev under the aegis of Russia.

Thus, the Berdzor corridor (Lachin), which represents the only road linking Artsakh to Armenia, has been blocked since December 12, 2022. The pseudo-Azerbaijani environmental activists who had launched this terrorist action were then replaced by soldiers. .

Better still, they have recently illegally set up a checkpoint along this corridor, not without taking the liberty of prohibiting Russian soldiers – who are supposed to be the masters of the place – from using it!

Artsakh in Armenia has been blocked since December 12, 2022. The Azeri pseudo-environmental activists who launched this terrorist action were later replaced by soldiers.

Better still, they have recently illegally set up a checkpoint along this corridor, not without taking the liberty of prohibiting Russian soldiers – who are supposed to be the masters of the place – from using it!

Artsakh in Armenia has been blocked since December 12, 2022. The Azeri pseudo-environmental activists who launched this terrorist action were later replaced by soldiers.

Better still, they have recently illegally set up a checkpoint along this corridor, not without taking the liberty of prohibiting Russian soldiers – who are supposed to be the masters of the place – from using it!

Like Basil II, Vladimir Putin is misguided in believing that Armenia is of no use as a counterweight to pan-Turkish expansionism.

Aram Mardirossian

Legitimately, Putin is ready to do anything to counter the United States and its Western vassals who seek to bring Russia down.

He thus considers that the alliance with Turkey and Azerbaijan constitutes a choice card in his game, both politically and diplomatically as well as economically.

But the master of the Kremlin is making a big mistake by letting

Armenia

be attacked without restraint by his acolytes of the moment.

Just as much as Artsakh, the pan-Turkist duo is on the verge of Siwnik (Zanguezur), which gives Armenia a narrow border with Iran and hinders territorial continuity between Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Without even mentioning their civilizational and religious proximity, Putin is mistaken in despising Yerevan to such an extent, which constitutes his only structural ally – albeit weak – in this region.

Like Basil II, he goes astray in believing that Armenia is in no way useful as a counterweight to pan-Turkish expansionism.

In reality, Putin seems to have been contaminated by an evil that has affected Western leaders for a very long time: to act like a vulgar uneducated manager who reasons in the small week and not like a real head of state who proposes a civilizational policy articulated on time long.

Certainly, in the short term, the fate of Armenia and Artsakh will not have a crucial impact on Russia.

But over time, by letting Turkish power subjugate its Caucasian border, Putin puts his country in danger.

Aram Mardirossian

Certainly, in the short term, the fate of Armenia and Artsakh will not have a crucial impact on Russia.

But over time, by letting Turkish power subjugate its Caucasian border, Putin puts his country in danger.

Externally, the Turkic-speaking former Soviet republics of Central Asia are increasingly escaping its influence to the benefit of Turkey, as evidenced in particular by Erdogan's efforts to develop the Organization of Turkic States.

Inside, the population of Russia includes 20 million Muslims, overwhelmingly Turkic, who have a higher birth rate than the majority Christian Orthodox.

Read alsoIn the Senate, the friends of Armenia to the rescue of Nagorno-Karabakh

Historically, Turkey and Azerbaijan – which advertise themselves as “two states, one nation” – have been structural enemies of Russia.

Unfortunately Putin, who seems to have misplaced his strategic gifts somewhere in Ukraine, is now ready to accept anything from these "allies" who, in return, do not hesitate to send arms to Kiev!

How can Putin accept that a power as prestigious as Russia is humiliated by Azerbaijan which is nothing but a kind of gangster state - led by the Aliyev-Pashayev mafia clans - whose he main contribution to human history can be summed up in an almost uninterrupted series of massacres and exactions?

Worse still, how can Putin fail to see that the imperial ambitions of

Erdogan, who so skilfully combines Islamo-Panturquism and neo-Ottomanism, leaves hanging over the head of his country a sword of Damocles, or rather a scimitar which, for the moment still seems far in the heights, but which one bad day could fall on him on the head or that of his successors.

In doing so, he poses to the third Rome, which Russia claims to embody, the risk of experiencing the same end as the second Rome experienced on an unlucky Tuesday in the year 1453!

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-05-03

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