Azerbaijan Takes Advantage of Russia's Special Operation in Ukraine and Presents New Ultimatum to Armenia: Zatulin

It is not easy to do this now, as Turkey stands behind Baku. This was stated by Konstantin Zatulin, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma's committee on CIS affairs, in an interview with the radio station "Moscow Speaks."

Recently, Armenia appealed to Russia due to the escalation of the situation at the border with Azerbaijan. Zatulin believes that Azerbaijan is taking advantage of Russia's involvement in the special military operation in Ukraine and is presenting a new ultimatum to Armenia.

“Shelling, unfortunately, is a sad reality that has accompanied Armenian-Azerbaijani relations for many years, but especially during the two-year war. After this war, Azerbaijan is exhausting all paths and means to extract as much benefit as possible from Armenia's defeat in the struggle for Karabakh. This has already led to a series of consequences after the handover of Azerbaijani territories. But Azerbaijan, apparently, is not completely satisfied with this and wants more, using the tight circumstances of Russia, which is involved in Ukrainian events, to present its demands that are very similar to an ultimatum. I believe this is a consequence of everything that happened two years ago, and we are reaping those results, and I think we still need to understand Turkey's role, which is usually behind all Azerbaijan's actions, inciting them,” he said.

The deputy noted that Russia would stay away from intervening in military operations, but should “calm” Azerbaijan: “I think Russia will do everything to avoid a situation that requires direct intervention and the initiation of military operations. Russia simply needs to ensure calm behavior from Azerbaijan. But given that Turkey is behind Azerbaijan, achieving that is difficult. Russia is trying to make diplomatic progress toward a peace treaty.”