Power, who traveled to Armenia to pledge U.S. support, cited “very troubling reports” of violence by Azerbaijani forces against civilians, and she called on the President Ilham Aliyev’s government to “maintain the cease-fire and take concrete steps to protect the rights of civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
In Armenia, Power met people fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region that Armenians call Artsakh.
The region is recognized internationally as the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan but has been in dispute for decades, since Armenia seized control of it during a war in the late 1980s and early 1990s amid the collapse of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan took back most of the territory during the war in 2020, but a cease-fire brokered by Russia left uncertain the fate of thousands of ethnic Armenians, including residents of the capital, Stepanakert.
The failure of Russian peacekeepers to control the situation reflected widening instability in countries that long looked to Moscow as the regional power but now find the Kremlin highly distracted by its war in Ukraine. Last year, an escalation of border clashes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan was also partly blamed on Russia’s preoccupation with Ukraine.
On Monday, at least 20 Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians waiting for gasoline were killed in a fuel depot in Stepanakert, and nearly 300 were injured as thousands fled by car, fearing violence from Azerbaijan’s advancing forces.
Officials in the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh region announced air evacuations of the most seriously injured victims in Monday’s blast, with the Stepanakert’s limited medical facilities overwhelmed and the only road to Armenia largely blocked by the torrent of cars of those leaving their homes, probably forever.
Dozens of patients were in critical condition, officials said, and others were still missing.
As the exodus accelerated, Power announced that the United States would provide $11.5 million in humanitarian aid to assist those fleeing. On Monday, she met Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who alleged that ethnic cleansing was underway.
Every few minutes, on the mountain highway connecting the Armenian capital, Yerevan, with an area called the Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh, another ambulance screeched by late Tuesday, the blue lights illuminating the night.
Medics were rushing to the Yerevan, carrying the injured from Nagorno-Karabakh. Some were hurt during a swift and brutal Azerbaijani military operation last week; others in Monday’s fuel depot explosion. Traveling in the opposite direction, trucks with cargo bound for Iran slowly snaked their way along the main road connecting landlocked Armenia to its neighbors.
Russian helicopters transferred a number of critically injured patients to Armenian territory, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, but it did not offer details on the numbers or where precisely they were taken.
In 2020, Moscow aggressively inserted itself into the role of peacemaker, but its efforts have largely failed, partly perhaps because of the Kremlin’s focus on its war in Ukraine.
With Russian peacekeepers having proved unable to deliver on President Vladimir Putin’s 2020 promise to provide security for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, the bulk of the region’s ethnic Armenian population is now expected to leave. Already more than 19,000 people have left the region since Sunday, according to the Armenian government.
In response to widespread criticism in Armenia of Russia’s role, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday skirted calls by U.S. and Armenian officials for an international mission to monitor the security of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani rule, with Moscow and Baku apparently loath to agree.
Peskov said there could be no such mission without Baku’s consent, avoiding the question of Moscow’s stance.
“No, there is no certainty here yet,” Peskov said. “Then, any mission can exist only with the consent of the Azerbaijani side. One has to keep this in mind first of all.”
“For our part, we stay in contact with Yerevan, Baku and ethnic Armenians in Karabakh,” Peskov said. On Monday, he denied Russia bore any responsibility for the crisis.
Last week’s military operation by Azerbaijan followed a roughly nine-month blockade of the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia through the Lachin Corridor. The blockade caused a humanitarian crisis including shortages of food.
Power on Tuesday met local officials in the Armenian city of Goris, where thousands of refugees are arriving.
“It is very difficult to hear and see what these families are going through. Many left their towns and villages under shelling,” she said.
Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, on Monday called for “an international mission to provide transparency, reassurance and confidence to the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and the international community, that … their rights and security will be protected consistent with the public statements that Azerbaijan has made.”
He said there were “active discussions” with Washington’s partners about the proposal, adding that Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh should be able to remain in their homes.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has bitterly criticized Armenian authorities, even as Yerevan faces a massive influx of civilians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh.
After Pashinyan criticized Russian actions in the region during a televised address Sunday, blaming Russia for failing to prevent last week’s attacks, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Yerevan of “unacceptable attacks on Russia,” claiming these were “inspired by the West” and were destructive for Armenia and its alliance with Russia.
“The Armenian leadership is making a huge mistake by deliberately attempting to sever Armenia’s multifaceted and centuries-old ties with Russia, making the country a hostage to Western geopolitical games,” the ministry said in a statement Monday.
Azerbaijan has declared that its government agencies will take over, the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh government administration must dissolve and the local population “reintegrate” into Azerbaijani society.
As thousands left Nagorno-Karabakh by car, clogging the road from Stepanakert, local officials urged residents to delay their journey or to avoid taking their cars with them, and travel by bus instead. Many, however, may not want to return to the region after it reverts to Azerbaijani rule.
Triumphal claims of victory by Aliyev last week and his boasts that his country had restored its territorial integrity with an “iron fist” have left Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fearful of persecution once Baku takes control.
Meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, Aliyev said the rights of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh would be “guaranteed by the Azerbaijani state,” a statement that few living in the region trust given the decades of ethnic hatred between the two warring countries.
Dixon reported from Riga, Latvia.