The first attempt of support took place on the fourth day of Russian invasion, when a poster with the text \u201c\u0410\u0440\u043c\u0438\u044f \u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u0438\u201d (Army of Russia) was hung from the Kievyan bridge in Yerevan only for 9 minutes<\/a> by several individuals, and the video was spread on social networks for days attempting to prove Armenia\u2019s support.<\/p>\n If the organizers of the action were unknown this time, a few months later, the organizers of an action exhibiting a huge poster with Putin\u2019s photo to mark the birthday of Russia\u2019s president first in Stepanakert, then in Yerevan, turned out<\/a> to be a pro-Russian group. <\/p>\n Media.am has already addressed<\/a> other similar episodes, in the meantime pinpointing the fact that pro-Russian actions are quickly swept across the web, while the actions in support of Ukraine, go unnoticed.<\/p>\n This was accompanied with emergence of false facts on Armenia allegedly seconding Russian military operations. For example, British BBC relied on an Azerbaijani source<\/a> to make an unfounded claim that Russia has moved mercenaries from Syria to Ukraine allegedly using Armenia as a transit country. The British media did not take into account that the source it used, Haber Global, had already spread other fake news related to Armenia in the context of Ukrainian war. <\/p>\n In one case it made a claim that Armenia has delivered SU-30SM fighter aircrafts and pilots to Russia. The allegation was completely groundless, yet considering its prevalence, the Armenian authorities had to refute <\/a>it, and the military attach\u00e9s of the EU and NATO member states accredited in Armenia were to physically come and eyewitness<\/a> that the fighters were intact. In another case the Azerbaijani Haber Global reported about Russian peacekeeping forces taken out of Nagorno Karabakh to fight against Ukraine. This was yet another fake news: the peacekeepers were and are still in Karabakh.<\/p>\n Along with this, fake news about Ukraine-Azerbaijan tandem were sweeping Armenia. For example, the news about actions taking place in Azerbaijan and Ukraine on April 24 under the motto \u201cZangezur is Azerbaijan\u201d was insinuated by Azerbaijani sources to Armenia. As it turned out, these actions were old and had other causes.<\/a> Another claim already refuted<\/a>, was being circulated, which referred to Ukraine selling white phosphorus to Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan uses its information resources to antagonize Armenia in the eyes of western auditorium. This country has created media resources imitating to be Armenia, while carrying forward anti-Armenian propaganda. The same content is shared by pro-Azerbaijani lobbyists.<\/p>\n One of such resources to be mentioned is the Armenianreport website, publishing an anti-Semitic article purportedly penned by an Armenian columnist in October 2022, arguing that Armenia should develop relations with Arab states, first of all Palestine, because Israel and Jews are \u201cgreedy\u201d and \u201cmercantile\u201d, and have interest only in rich Azerbaijan. <\/p>\n The article fabricated on the most widespread anti-Semitic stereotypes coupled with an anti-Semitic caricature. Media.am addressed<\/a> that article reminding that Armenianreport is used more as a weapon of information war rather than a news media. <\/p>\n To blame Armenia in nazism, this article has been widely circulated by pro-Azerbaijani lobbyists, including Michael Doran, American analyst. Every time he tweets on regional news in his microblog, he reminds that Armenia is Iran’s ally, Russia\u2019s satellite.<\/a><\/p>\n In the context of equating Ukraine-Russia and Armenia-Azerbaijan conflicts, one of the pro-Azerbaijani lobbyists Brenda Shaffer, who worked as an advisor<\/a> to the president of the Azerbaijani state oil producer SOCAR, is quite active. She claims<\/a> that the United States should assist Azerbaijan in the same way it does Ukraine. Likewise, she is vigorously spreading the Azerbaijani propaganda that Armenia is a threat to the energy supplied by Azerbaijan to the Europe. In September, during the attack of Azerbaijan on Armenia, she made a claim<\/a> that \u201ceach time Azerbaijan plans to increase gas exports to Europe, conflict emerges.\u201d <\/p>\n Furthermore, one of the arguments to back the splitting up into Armenia-Russia, Azerbaijan-West camps, is Armenia\u2019s membership to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) established by Russia. On the other hand, the declaration made by the Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev<\/a>, that \u201cthe number of our friends in CSTO is higher than those of Armenia\u201d comes to prove the manipulative nature of that propaganda.<\/p>\n The grounds of the Russian-Ukrainian war lie in the annexation of the territories of neighbor countries, whereas the mass democratic movement often deemed in Armenian historiography as one of the signals<\/a> of the collapse of the USSR, underlies Karabakh conflict.<\/p>\n There are three fundamental differences between the Karabakh and Russian-Ukrainian war:<\/p>\n 1. The basis of Karabakh conflict was the democratic movement, which the authorities of both the USSR, as well as those of the Soviet Armenia, were attempting to suspend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the late 1980-s, with the USSR Glasnost (openness), implying more loosened censorship and untied freedom of speech, the discrimination and oppressions against ethnic Armenians, who made the majority of Nagorno Karabakh, practiced by Azerbaijani authorities, gained active deliberations across the Soviet press and among Armenian intellectuals. <\/p>\n In February 1988, the Karabakh Movement took its start in Yerevan with the claim to include NK in the Armenian SSR. This movement was both nationalistic and at the same time democratic. Mass protests with the participation of hundreds of thousands, were taking place in Yerevan and Stepanakert under the motto \u201cUnification.\u201d Soon after, the demonstrators were joined by small and large enterprises, the workers announced strikes, and special Strike committees were set up in certain enterprises.<\/p>\n However, these demonstrations were not welcomed by the authorities of either Moscow, or Yerevan. Addressing people, First Secretary of the Soviet Armenia Karen Demirchyan said that <\/a>the demands of NK contradict the interests of Armenia and Azerbaijan. <\/p>\n The demonstrations were received exceedingly negatively in Azerbaijan landing on clashes between two nations. From February 27 to March 1, massacres of local Armenians take place in the Azerbaijani city Sumgait. The situation is resolved only after the intervention of the USSR Army.<\/p>\n Soviet authorities were trying to put off the demonstrations of Armenians first with pleas, and later on with banning the gatherings. However, the demonstrations went on throughout the entire period of 1988 both in Yerevan, and in Stepanakert. The authorities of NK were making a reference to the principle of nations\u2019 self-determination stipulated in the Constitution of USSR and calling for unification with Armenia.<\/p>\n In the meanwhile, clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis carried on. By the end of 1988 hundreds of thousands Armenians and Azerbaijanis were forced to leave their houses in Azerbaijan and Armenia: both countries \u201ccleansed\u201d their territories from unwanted ethnic minorities. <\/p>\nAntagonization of Armenia in the eyes of West <\/h2>\n
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