By Mark Dovich
The fragile ceasefire brokered Wednesday evening between Armenia and Azerbaijan continued to hold as of 9 p.m. local time Friday, a spokesperson for Armenia’s Defense Ministry said.
“No change in the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border,” Aram Torosyan wrote on Facebook.
Earlier in the day, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan revised Armenia’s death toll in the clashes up to 135, while Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry raised its combat losses to 77. Those figures make this week the bloodiest in the region since the outbreak of the war in and around Karabakh (Artsakh) nearly two years ago.
Meanwhile, Kristinne Grigoryan, Armenia’s Human Rights Defender, said the number of Armenian civilians displaced from their homes in the fighting had reached 7,600.
“The majority of those displaced are women, children, elderly persons, and persons with disabilities,” she wrote on Facebook.
Edvard Asryan, the chief of the general staff of Armenia’s armed forces, said at a briefing Friday for foreign diplomats posted to Armenia that Armenian officials had in their possession photo and video evidence of alleged “atrocities” committed by Azerbaijani soldiers.
Russia conspicuously declined to send embassy staff to the briefing, a decision that garnered much attention in Armenia, where it was seen in a broader pattern of attempts by the Kremlin this week to appear balanced in the conflict.
At a United Nations Security Council meeting the day before, Russia’s representative issued a measured statement in response to the escalation in hostilities, while French and U.S. representatives, among others, called out Azerbaijan for its role in this week’s clashes more forcefully than during past rounds of fighting.
Meanwhile, Armen Grigoryan, the head of Armenia’s Security Council, told Radio Azatutyun Friday that Armenia’s “expectations have not been met” from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russian-led military alliance.
Armenia, a founding member of the alliance, expects the CSTO to help ensure that “Azerbaijani troops completely withdraw from the sovereign territory of Armenia,” he explained.
Armenia appealed to the CSTO for assistance on Tuesday, shortly after Azerbaijan launched its attack, but the alliance has so far refused to send troops to Armenia, instead deciding to form a fact-finding mission to “assess the current situation” and “prepare a detailed report.”
Referring to the CSTO’s swift and decisive response to mass civil unrest that shook fellow alliance member Kazakhstan in January, Grigoryan said, “there was such a hope (that the CSTO would react similarly in Armenia), and naturally, that hope has been dashed.”
A small number of Armenian citizens attempted to gather in front of the Russian embassy in central Yerevan Friday to protest “against Russia’s indifference and neutrality,” but police immediately detained them.
