Russian Accusations Against West In South Caucasus 'Describe Their Own Destabilizing Activities', U.S. Says

The State Department on Thursday pushed back against Moscow's accusations against the Western policy in the South Caucasus saying that quotes from the Russian government officials "describe their own destabilizing activities in the region," as Spokesperson Matthew Miller put it, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

Miller was responding to TURAN's questions about the latest comments made by Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova who earlier in the day accused Washington of 'promoting a destructive agenda in the South Caucasus.'

"We often hear these quotes from the Russian Government. I wonder who they’re talking about, because the quotes that you hear from them describe Russia’s own destabilizing activities in the region.  It is – and I would remind the entire world that it is Russia that has invaded its neighbors, that it has occupied its neighbor’s territory and continues to conduct war against its neighbors," Miller stated.

Russian government outlets quoted Zakharova Thursday morning as rejecting senior U.S. officials' recent statements on South Caucasus countries, namely Armenia. According to her, the West "is promoting a destructive agenda in the South Caucasus, with the main goal of fragmenting the region and destroying Russia’s historical ties with its traditional allies and neighbors."

A recent survey conducted by the International Republican Institute indicates that over 65 percent of Armenians have a negative view of Russia and its influence in the region.

TURAN also asked Miller about the latest mass YouTube outage reported in Russia amid escalating official criticism.

"It is something that we’ve seen Russia undertake for some time and undertake in an accelerated fashion since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.  And what they have done is try and consistently crack down on the ability of Russian citizens to access information about what their government is doing.  So we continue to condemn these crackdowns," Miller said.

Russian internet monitoring service Sboi.rf said Thursday afternoon that there had been thousands of glitches reported about YouTube in the country. Users said they could only access YouTube via virtual private networks.

"We continue to urge the Kremlin to stop blocking access to information for its own people," Miller said.

"And as we’ve said before, it’s not exactly a sign of confidence in the legitimacy of your operations when you’re cracking down on your own citizenry’s ability to access information about those operations," the spokesperson concluded.