Russian peacekeepers snap back

Baku/25.11.22/Turan: Russian peacekeepers decided to respond to the accusations of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan about the non-use of Azerbaijani toponyms by Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh.

On its telegram channel (t.me/RUS_peacekeeper) the command of the peacekeepers rejected Baku's claims.

“The Russian Armed Forces and the peacekeeping contingent, in the course of carrying out training and combat missions, use toponyms established by the topographic maps of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces.

The criticism from Baku regarding the name of the settlement Magavuz is surprising, since earlier and repeatedly, other non-Azerbaijani toponyms were used in the bulletins of the Russian Ministry of Defense in the context of ensuring the escort of automobile convoys of Azerbaijani citizens through the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this did not lead to claims in the information space. Moreover, when coordinating the route of movement of the columns and organizing interaction with Russian peacekeepers, the Azerbaijani side also uses these toponyms,” the message says.

The activities of the peacekeepers "received a high assessment of their effectiveness from Azerbaijani officials at various meetings."

As for violations of the ceasefire regimes, they are "recorded by observation posts of peacekeepers using objective control equipment that allows observation at any time of the day."

“It would not be bad at all for the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan not to question the activities of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh on such insignificant occasions, and in close cooperation with it, including on the ground, to continue work to maintain peace in the region,” reads the press release.

Recall that earlier the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan issued a message stating that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the command of peacekeepers, as well as the Turkish-Russian Monitoring Center were sent a list and a map of settlements in the Karabakh economic region with names corresponding to Azerbaijani toponyms. "However, the peacekeepers use Armenian names”.

At the same time, violations of the ceasefire regime by Armenian formations,  are not reflected in the official statements of Russian peacekeepers, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

Finally, the peacekeepers did not respond to Baku’s accusations that mines produced in Armenia in 2021 were transported along the Russian-controlled Lachin corridor and buried in the Lachin, Kalbajar and Shusha regions.-02B-