Armenian border guards opened fire on June 15 to stop Azerbaijani servicemen from placing an Azerbaijani flag near a checkpoint controversially set up by them in the Lachin corridor in late April. Baku denied that they tried to cross into Armenian territory.
Videos of the incident suggest that the Azerbaijanis were escorted by Russian soldiers as they crossed a bridge over the Hakari river in order to hoist the flag. The Armenian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Yerevan on June 16 to express “strong discontent” with the Russian peacekeepers’ actions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, defended the peacekeepers and rejected the Armenian criticism as “absolutely groundless.” She said the incident resulted from the “absence of a delimited Armenian-Azerbaijani border.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry dismissed that argument on June 22, saying that Zakharova echoed Baku’s regular justifications of its “aggressive actions against Armenia’s borders.” It said that instead of “looking for excuses,” Moscow should help to ensure the conflicting parties’ full compliance with a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 war Karabakh.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reported late on Monday that Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin “received” Armenian Ambassador Vagharshak Harutiunian. A short statement released by the ministry said they discussed in detail “developments in the Lachin corridor and around Nagorno-Karabakh in general.” Galuzin stressed the importance of unconditional implementation of all Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Moscow during and after the 2020 war, the statement added without elaborating.
It was not clear whether the Russian Foreign Ministry formally summoned Harutiunian to again hit back at the Armenian Foreign Ministry. The latter did not issue a statement on Harutiunian’s conversation with Galuzin.
The ceasefire agreement placed the only road connecting Karabakh to Armenia under the control of the Russian peacekeeping contingent and committed Azerbaijan to guaranteeing safe passage through it. Azerbaijan blocked commercial traffic there last December before setting up the checkpoint in what the Armenian side denounced as a further gross violation of the Russian-brokered ceasefire.