Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik James Krikorian 2009

Tomorrow, 17 January, residents of what remains of the besieged and breakaway Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) will be allocated ration coupons for basic and essential foodstuffs as control of the strategic Lachin Corridor by self-identified Azerbaijani environmental activists enters its second month. Despite their claims, however, most consider the effective but albeit partial blockade of the region, situated within Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, to be more than just about that.

Regardless, the rationing will include goods such as rice, buckwheat, macaroni, and sugar, all apparently distributed from Karabakh’s reserves, while coupons will be available at service points in schools and a university in Stepanakert or in rural administrative centres. Such a move was not unexpected in the current situation and many residents had reportedly already called for such a system to avoid missing out on disappearing supplies in shops while the local authorities likely wanted to prevent a black market from emerging.

The rationing system, incidentally, is on top of humanitarian assistance coming via Lachin through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Russian peacekeeping mission as well as what other stocks or local supplies are available elsewhere. Karabakh, for example, is quite fertile and does have its own local capacity for certain goods such as wheat and flour while also having its own farms, including greenhouses. Nonetheless, in a recent interview, defacto State Minister Ruben Vardanyan warned that this was still insufficient.

“We will not starve, because there’s enough food,” Vardanyan told Reuters on 24 December. “But some products we cannot get on our internal market.”

Unfortunately, little reliable information is available on the full picture is in Karabakh, but the defacto authorities do at least present some to the public, as would be expected in order to avoid panic or desperation. There have also been social media posts showing that some restaurants and cafes are still operating while one young Karabakh Armenian has been updating her followers on TikTok as to the situation, including what food she is able to purchase in the shops.

This is not surprising given that keeping the economy afloat will be a key concern for Vardanyan and his team. Indeed, in a live Stepanakert-Yerevan bridge, Karabakh’s Minister of Economy, Hrant Safaryan, acknowledged this saying that, as I had speculated about in another post, there is an attempt to keep some eateries and other businesses dependent on various ingredients adequately supplied. Vardanyan had also already met with restaurant and cafe owners to discuss how the authorities could work with them and vice-versa. 

Despite this, however, the situation is changing. From what little is known, in the first few weeks of an effective blockade, the main shortage of goods in the shops were predictable – imported packaged goods from Armenia. It is also important to note that many residents had already likely stocked up for the New Year and Christmas season. However, as days passed by, shoppers were instead only able to buy limited amounts of locally produced goods and reportedly only if and when available.

The supply of vegetables and fruits were particularly hit.

On 15 January, however, video emerged, again on TikTok, of Russian peacekeeping troops handing out bags of oranges or mandarins and tomatoes and cucumbers to women outside a hospital in Stepanakert. Though it remains unclear to what extent the mission is helping, Vardanyan has said that 400 vehicles passed through despite the blockade. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has also been able to transfer medical supplies and other items such as infant formula from Armenia while also ferrying critically ill patients to Yerevan.

Even so, while 28 patients have reportedly been transported by the ICRC to Armenia, planned surgeries for 400 others have been suspended due to the lack of supplies or personnel.

Moreover, the situation is more complicated than that. On 10 January, electricity cables from Armenia to Karabakh were damaged, apparently by bad weather according to accounts from Stepanakert, and it has been impossible to pass through Lachin to repair the damage. Thus, Karabakh is also now experiencing a power shortage given that its locally hydro-electric power is far less than prior to the 2020 war when it controlled those seven regions of Azerbaijan since taken back or returned.

New blackouts of two hours will now be extended to four.

And there are other concerns as well. As I highlighted here, and as already mentioned above, the economy will be a matter of huge concern to the local authorities and today Karabakh’s Information Centre reported that 726 businesses, or 17.7 percent of the total number operating, have had to suspend their activities too. In human terms, that means 3,400 people, presumably including those from the mines ostensibly at the centre of the crisis that were recently closed,  are now unemployed.

The authorities did, however, prevent a run on the banks by limiting how much currency could be withdrawn from ATMs, advising residents to use cards.

Political intrigues this past weekend, however, have surprised many, though some had expected them given a recent warning from local activist Tigran Petrosyan after comments Vardanyan made about certain Karabakh residents using alleged connections to pass through Lachin and even to bring back food and fuel to sell. “Mr. Vardanyan, this is Karabakh. Be a little careful,” the activist, who was a main force behind the 27 December march on the Russian peacekeeping base to demand they open the Lachin Corridor, wrote.

The replacement of then Security Council Secretary Vitaly Balasanyan just days before on 7 January also irked some in Karabakh who alleged there had been a falling out with Vardanyan. But the real problems emerged when the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, was criticised for comments made on 10 January directly implying that the international community does not consider the region to be anything other than an integral part of Azerbaijan. Vardanyan did not react calmly.

In response, on 12 January, Pashinyan urged Karabakh’s leadership to tone down such statements but also to negotiate directly with Baku,  something the opposition and other nationalist forces believe means Armenia had ‘washed its hands’ of the region. Rumours then emerged that Karabakh’s defacto president, Arayik Harutyunyan, might dismiss Vardanyan. Supporters of the State Minister accused him of working in cahoots with Pashinyan and some even alleged he had received offers of security and financial benefits from Baku.

Rumours also circulated that Harutyunyan might call early parliamentary and presidential elections, something that National Assembly Speaker Artur Tovmasyan did not rule out on 14 January. “Talking about elections and dismissal is treason and serving the enemy’s agenda,” Vardanyan advisor Mesrob Arakelyan wrote on Facebook in response. “I am not going to resign, especially in the existing situation,” Vardanyan also shared on social media, adding that early elections were also unacceptable. 

But in a late night meeting on Sunday, however, it was reported that some kind of compromise had been reached. Vardanyan would remain in his position but with the caveat that he would no longer make any further political statements unless in consultation with Harutyunyan. His focus would also be no more directed towards economic issues. Nonetheless, adding to the intrigue, Balasanyan’s replacement, Ararat Melkumyan, was also replaced earlier today as Security Council Secretary just nine days after being appointed. 

In the meantime, the impasse on the Lachin Corridor continues with no apparent end in sight and even though a peace deal after over three decades of an unsustainable and misperceived ‘status quo’ remains as pressing as ever.

Incidentally, for more on work on Lachin itself from 2001-2006 see here, here, here, and here.

Market, Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik James Krikorian 2009

Not unexpectedly, on 20 January, certain food products in Karabakh will only be available via a rationing coupon or voucher system. This had already been announced by defacto State Minister Ruben Vardanyan on 8 January before it was then announced yesterday that it would start operating on 20 January. This is something anyway anticipated when stocks in shops started to increasingly disappear or sell out quickly. 

Some residents had already been quoted by media calling for such a system as the effective siege of Karabakh on the Lachin Corridor enters its second month. The coupons will be distributed on 17 January.

According to reports, those items rationed will includes rice, pasta, buckwheat, sugar and vegetable oil which are reportedly from the state reserves. Vardanyan had also already warned businesses that price increases of more than 15 percent would be deprived of supply. A system of ‘service points’ will be set up in public schools and at the main university in Stepanakert while in the regions in district administrative buildings and community halls.

This post will be updated when more information is available.

Wreckage of an Armenian Yak-40 passenger aircraft that was flying from Stepanakert to Yerevan and hit by fire from an Azerbaijani SU-25 on 9 May 1992, forcing it to crash close to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border near Sisian. Among the 30 or so passengers on board were wounded soldiers. There were no fatalities © Onnik James Krikorian 1994

Yesterday, Artur Tovmasyan, defacto Speaker of Karabakh’s National Assembly, issued a statement calling on the Russian, French and U.S. Presidents to force Azerbaijan to allow an airlift from Armenia to the isolated region’s airport situated outside of Stepanakert. The remarks came after over three weeks of what are claimed to be environmental protests effectively blocking access to and from Karabakh on the Lachin Corridor.

In words echoing those of defacto State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, Tovmasyan said that this was necessary to transport vital humanitarian assistance to the besieged ethnic Armenian residents of what remains of the former Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO). That, however, is unlikely to happen. Indeed, in a news item published today, Security and Policy Consultant Sossi Tatikyan explained why. 

“Unfortunately, this is not possible without the agreement of Azerbaijan or the resolution of the UN Security Council,” she told Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). “It was not even possible to adopt a statement of the UN Security Council, as we saw a few days ago, because there was no consensus. That is the main problem.”

Though other airlifts to Darfur and Zaire are mentioned in the piece, there are also major differences. “Now there is a lot of talk about humanitarian airlift – delivering aid by air,” Tatikyan said. “Azerbaijan can say that there is no need for it because the Red Cross trucks can already pass and bring aid, place emphasis on this and reject it with such a technical reason.” 

Nonetheless, this of course does not mean that Tatikyan is happy with the situation. “If we give the issue a purely humanitarian nature we can go for short-term solutions […] but the political and security issues will not be resolved,” she said. “That is, the blockade of Artsakh can be normalised and it said, here, some humanitarian aid is entering and people are not condemned to an extremely dire situation, so let it [Lachin] remain closed.” 

Of course, Stepanakert’s airport, located in Khojaly, now renamed Ivanyan by the defacto authorities following the war of the early 1990s, is no stranger to controversy. Though it was operational back then, and I personally landed there in an Armenian military helicopter when I travelled from Yerevan to Karabakh in 1994, it wasn’t until 2008 that steps were taken to make it actually operational in the post-war period.

Indeed, when the construction of what is now a new and modern airport was completed in 2011, then Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan announced that he would be on onboard the first inaugural flight from Yerevan. Azerbaijan responded angrily and threatened to shoot down any aircraft entering what is internationally recognised as its airspace, and even though the physical territory below was out of Baku’s control.

A month later, those threats were walked back following international condemnation, and Baku stated that it would never “use force against civilian forces.” Nonetheless, the inauguration of the new airport never took place and no flights were ever launched. Stepanakert clearly hopes that this time will be different. 

In the here and now, however, and though it is feasible that there could be international pressure on Azerbaijan to allow at least a humanitarian airlift given that supplies are reportedly running low, Baku will be reluctant to agree. As Tatikyan mentioned, Azerbaijan would simply point to the large number of Russian peacekeeping convoys and some International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles that can still transit through Lachin.

Moreover, Baku claims that, in fact, the highway is already open to all vehicles.

But, of course, there’s also a caveat. Azerbaijan would also insist that all goods should be inspected, something that the defacto Karabakh authorities have already rejected and certainly do not want. Such stops, they argue, would then inevitably lead to the normalisation of border and customs controls on a highway that had previously been largely free of them prior to the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement and even until 12 December 2022.

And this, of course, is the crux of the matter. There still remains disagreement between Yerevan and Baku over the ‘unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions from Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan,’ as stipulated by the 2020 ceasefire statement. Azerbaijan therefore believes that if Armenia continues to insist on border and customs controls on that route, then it should have the same for the Lachin Corridor. 

Though the impasse on the Lachin Corridor continues to be framed as an environmental protest, most analysts understand that it is actually more than just that. Indeed, the opening of what Azerbaijan has termed the ‘Zangezur Corridor ‘ remains a key objective for Baku. Meanwhile, some social media accounts even allege that Armenia has blockaded Nakhichevan, though this is far from the truth.

While Armenia’s border with Nakhichevan is indeed closed, the exclave also has land borders with Iran and Turkey while Karabakh only has the Lachin Corridor. Moreover, and somewhat ironically given these new calls for Karabakh’s airport to be opened, Azerbaijani commercial aircraft still continue to fly from Baku to Nakhichevan via Armenian airspace and have done so since October 2021.

Even so, a solution to the standoff on the Lachin Corridor continues to remain elusive with neither side willing to budge and thus, no end in sight. Indeed, Vardanyan has already told Karabakh’s population to be ready for a long winter. Certainly, it is highly unlikely that the airport is going to open even for an airlift.