Who is behind the information policy of RIA Novosti, and what are its goals?

Baku/06.06.22/Turan: On June 3, the Russian state agency RIA Novosti published an interview with one of the leaders of the Karabakh irredentists, Artak Beglaryan. The content of this material is a violation of the sovereignty of Azerbaijan and contradicts the tripartite statements of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia after the end of the Second Karabakh War in November 2020.

In this regard, the head of the Press Service Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Leyla Abdullayeva, said that the RIA Novosti provocation "overshadows the efforts of the Russian Federation to establish peace in the region in the post-conflict period."

The Ministry of Digital Development and Transport also issued a statement on June 4, citing the distribution of slanderous materials against Azerbaijan as the reason for blocking the RIA-Novosti website.

The RIA Novosti agency, by disseminating slanderous information on its information Internet resource, encouraging separatist tendencies and opposing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, violated the requirement of the Azerbaijani law "On Information, Informatization and Protection of Information", and in accordance with this law, access to information The Internet resource of the Agency in the country is limited,” the ministry said in a statement.

Does RIA Novosti deliberately disseminate such information? If so, what is the purpose of such an information policy?

Elhan Shahinoglu, a political observer and head of the Atlas Research Center, answers these and other questions in the program "A Difficult Question".

According to him, this publication by RIA Novosti is not at all an accident, but an integral part of the state policy of Russia.

“Why do they act like this? Indeed, quite recently, on February 22, the Declaration on Allied Cooperation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation was signed? This is contrary to the spirit of this Declaration. The head of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Leyla Abdullayeva, also noted that this step of the Russian state agency contradicts the provision of the Declaration on Allied Cooperation of 2022 "to refrain from any activity directed against the principles of the UN Charter and each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity", and also "counter the threats of separatism," said Shahinoglu.

 In his opinion, by this Russia makes it clear that it does not need allied relations with Azerbaijan.

“Russia is concerned about damaging Azerbaijan's interests and preventing it from strengthening its position in the region. They do not want Azerbaijan to cooperate with the West. And to this end, they are trying to put pressure on Azerbaijan using separatists for this,” he said, stressing that RIA Novosti is a state agency and without the consent of the state, without permission from above, such an interview would be simply impossible.

The political scientist also drew attention to the detail that Artak Beglaryan called for Russian peacekeepers to stay in Karabakh forever.

"It is possible that this separatist was interviewed in order to spread these words, sending a message to Azerbaijan - the Russians are not going to leave Karabakh," Shahinoglu is sure. -0—