From two o’clock in the afternoon there would be free petrol for everyone who wanted to flee Nagorno-Karabakh. People lined up in front of gas stations in the regional capital Stepanakert on Monday. After all, even before the Azerbaijani attack there was a shortage of everything: fuel, food, medicine and electricity. Now the Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh are fleeing the Azerbaijani troops that captured the region last week.
On Monday evening, a fuel depot near Stepanakert exploded, according to the office of the human rights representative of the internationally unrecognized republic. According to the dpa news agency, there are said to have been at least 200 injured and an unknown number of deaths. Huge clouds of smoke can be seen in the pictures.
There is little reliable information about the situation in Stepanakert, both regarding the explosion and the general situation. There are no independent reporters, residents send photos and messages via social media. The images show people carrying petrol cans, loading their car trunks, charging their mobile phones next to electricity generators on the street. There are also refugees in Stepanakert itself; they have come to safety in the capital from the surrounding villages. They are often looking for lost relatives and live in emergency shelters.
The streets were so full that the sick and injured could not be transported
At the same time, thousands of people are fleeing to Armenia: a total of 4,800 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have already arrived there, the government in Yerevan reported on Monday afternoon. Cars were backed up between Stepanakert and Gori – the first major city behind the border. The authorities have set up refugee accommodation in Gori.
Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh wrote that people who had lost their homes during the fighting should actually be brought to safety first. But the streets were now so full that sick and injured people, for example, could not be transported at all. According to the ombudsman of the unrecognized republic of “Artsakh”, as residents call Nagorno-Karabakh, 200 people were killed and more than 400 injured during the attack.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Sunday that without real protection against “ethnic cleansing” and without improving living conditions for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, the number of refugees would continue to rise. Responsibility for this lies with Azerbaijan and the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia is ready to accept all refugees from there, “our brothers and sisters”. That’s no small promise, because many refugees feel abandoned by Pashinyan. Accepting them now also poses risks for the Prime Minister.
Pashinyan wants to become more independent from Moscow
He had another message, it was headed for Moscow. Pashinyan said the Azerbaijani attack showed that Armenia’s external security system was “not effective.” By this he meant a security alliance led by Moscow, of which Armenia is a member – and which is now no longer sufficient for him. Pashinyan wants to become more independent from Moscow and sees the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a step towards this. However, he has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin.
Nevertheless, the Armenian prime minister emphasized that his decision was not directed against Russia. “Will Armenia be a sovereign, free, democratic state or a fearful peripheral region?” he asked in an address to the Armenian population. Armenia’s special ambassador Edmon Marukyan wrote on Platform X that the Russian peace mission had not ensured the peaceful existence of Nagorno-Karabakh. But the EU, the USA and all other international actors have also failed to protect the rights and security of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia would continue dialogue with Armenia. Putin recently spoke to Pashinyan on the phone. “We understand the emotional intensity of this moment,” Peskov said, “but we categorically reject the attempt to transfer responsibility to the Russian side or even to the Russian peacekeepers.” The Russian troops fulfilled their task heroically.
Meanwhile, the opposing side met to discuss the reconquered region: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is on Azerbaijan’s side in the conflict, spoke to President Ilham Aliyev on Monday. They chose the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, which is separated from Azerbaijan by Armenia, as the meeting point. Aliyev would like to build a land corridor there; that would also be in Erdoğan’s interest. He would then have access to the Caspian Sea via Azerbaijan.