For Moscow, Armenia and Azerbaijan are Friends: 168 Zham

For Moscow, the issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a conflict between friends, said Institute of Economics of Russian Academy of Sciences researcher Alexander Karavayev, while speaking to 168 Zham newspaper about the situation around the recently shot down helicopter on the Karabakh line of contact.

The Russian researcher noted that he does not agree with the view that Russia instigated Azerbaijan to shoot down the helicopter and destabilize the situation in the region. In his opinion, in Armenia it is, in general, falsely perceived that Armenia is Russia’s only strategic partner and ally.

“Fundamentally, it’s in Russian interest to have Azerbaijan as an arms market, but Russia sees Armenia and Azerbaijan as countries where it has equal influence. And for Moscow it is a conflict between two friends. This is the issue, and sometimes Yerevan doesn’t understand this; they say, ‘how is that possible, aren't we your strategic partner and CSTO member, while Azerbaijan is not?’ That's not the case at all. Actually, for Russia every country is important, especially in the current situation when real allies are very few,” noted Karavayev.