Members of the group called Crusaders that mostly consists of veterans of Karabakh wars said they arrived on Wednesday morning at a site near a bridge over the Hakari river marking the entrance to the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh where Azerbaijan installed a checkpoint earlier this year and tightened the effective blockade of the Armenian-populated region two months ago.
Armenia and ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh consider the Azerbaijani checkpoint at the Lachin corridor illegal as they insist its violates a Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement that places the vital route under the control of Russian peacekeepers.
The de facto blockade has resulted in severe shortages of food, medicine, and energy supply in the region which is home to about 120,000 ethnic Armenians.
Azerbaijan denies blockading Nagorno-Karabakh and offers an alternative route for supplies via the town of Agdam, which is situated east of the region and away from Armenia and is controlled by Baku. Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh reject that offer, fearing that it could be a prelude to the absorption of what remains of the former autonomous oblast into Azerbaijan.
Armenia has called for the reopening of the Lachin corridor, but officials in Yerevan have rejected any scenario of using force to unblock access to Nagorno-Karabakh.
As many as 14 members of the Crusaders group were detained on Tuesday during a protest in front of the government offices in central Yerevan demanding that they be armed with the intention of unblocking the corridor by force. The Interior Ministry told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that 13 of them were released shortly, but one protester was transferred to a preliminary investigation body on suspicion of carrying a knife.
It is unclear whether the obscure group has any immediate plans to try to confront the Azerbaijani checkpoints.
After spending some time in the vicinity of the Hakari bridge Crusaders members reportedly went back to the village of Kornidzor and then further to Goris.
One of the group members, Hovhannes Hovhannisian, published a video on TikTok, claiming that the police blocked their way in Kornidzor and did not allow them to move forward.
“We have arrived here, look with how many people they are blocking our way. They don’t let us go and pass this food [to Nagorno-Karabakh],” he said, referring to a convoy of 19 trucks with humanitarian aid that has been stranded near the entrance to the Lachin corridor on the Armenian side for nearly two weeks awaiting Azerbaijan’s approval to proceed to Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Let those who are Armenians, let veterans join us. But instead of joining us, instead of taking up arms and coming with us, they [police] point guns at us and threaten us with weapons,” Hovhannisian added.
Kornidzor village mayor Arshak Karapetian said that he did not have time to talk to the Crusaders and did not know what the group members were going to do in Goris.
“I just came to say hello and brought some water for them to drink. There were about 20-25 of them,” Karapetian said.
Before setting off to the southern Syunik province Crusaders members visited a military cemetery in Yerevan where soldiers killed in Nagorno-Karabakh wars are buried. From the place called Yerablur the commander of the group, Sargis Poghosian, called on others to join them.
“It seems to me that this is our last chance, we must do it, we must fight, we must not retreat, we must be able to win to save the people of Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – ed.], we must save our families, our fellow Armenians. Dear people, we must not leave the people of Artsakh alone. Folks, come and join us before it is too late. Come and join us so that we can at least open the road, at least let food enter Artsakh, at least let people there go to bed with their stomachs full,” Poghosian said.
Official Baku has not yet commented on the presence of Armenian war veterans near the Azerbaijani checkpoint at the Hakari bridge threatening to unblock the road passing through what Azerbaijan considers to be its sovereign territory. In the recent past, however, both political and military officials in Azerbaijan vowed decisive actions against any “Armenian provocation.”