Gegham Stepanian insisted that they will not go back even if Moscow offers them additional security guarantees.
“I believe that international guarantees are needed instead,” he told a news conference in Yerevan. “The track record of the Russian peacekeeping contingent deployed to Artsakh after 2020 shows that that guarantee is not enough to ensure security in Artsakh.”
Armenia has denounced the Russian peacekeepers for their failure to prevent or stop the September 19-20 assault that restored Baku’s full control over Karabakh and forced the region’s practically entire population to flee to Armenia. President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have rejected the criticism.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Wednesday that Moscow is now discussing with Baku the possibility of the safe return of the more than 100,000 Karabakh refugees. Earlier this week, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin similarly called for “creating conditions” for their repatriation.
Galuzin also claimed that the Karabakh Armenians left their homeland willingly. Stepanian condemned the claim.
“The Russian peacekeeping contingent should have been the first to certify that people left under real threat of physical annihilation,” said the ombudsman exiled in Armenia along with other Karabakh leaders.
Moscow is not known to have contacted any of those leaders so far to discuss the repatriation issue. It did not prevent Azerbaijani security services from arresting eight former political and military leaders of Karabakh during the mass exodus.
The 2,000 or so Russian peacekeepers remain stationed in Karabakh despite the fact that only a few dozen ethnic Armenians are reportedly left there. A senior Russian diplomat said in October that their mission “will also be necessary in the future.”