This war could have been avoided. Armenia’s President Armen Sargsyan said this in an interview given to RBK, answering the question of whether last year’s Artsakh war could have been avoided.
“This is one of those mathematical lessons where the talk is of ‘if’, and ‘if’ in mathematics is a recursive (self-referential) function, it is very complex — if this had been, and if that… But the reality is that it seems to me it was possible… Because for 30 years, at different periods, I have been engaged in diplomacy, I have met with the leaders of different countries… It seems to me that it is always possible to find ways to solve such problems without military action. After all, in the case of Karabakh, after the first Karabakh war there existed an organisation that dealt with it — the OSCE Minsk Group. There was a mechanism of communication, dialogue, and so on. But if you look from our side, if the talk is of our mistakes, then we again believed in what we wanted to believe. It seemed to us that the war was already over, the issue was already resolved. But it was far from being resolved. Especially since Azerbaijan constantly spoke of a future war. Instead of taking certain steps to strengthen Karabakh’s defence capability, to create more modern military infrastructure, and also to make Karabakh economically more effective…”
Another observation concerns modern Armenia. Unfortunately, Armenia, as a 21st-century country, was searching for itself… That is, it tried one thing, then another… the presidential system is not good, let us try something else… But in this conditionally democratic atmosphere, two Armenias appeared — one is the real Armenia, the one we speak of, which is in crisis today; the second is virtual, it is based on new technologies. The two Armenias have no connection with each other.
This is the second Armenia — it is a television series, it has no moral boundaries, no rules of conduct. It is so saturated. The problem is that this second Armenia is connected to the diaspora, which sees a virtual, wrong Armenia.”
