Armenia has fallen into the “Croatian” pit

It is not so easy for contemporaries to analyze and evaluate events taking place in real time. To do this, you have to wait, look at the trends and only then draw conclusions.

This approach is applicable to conflicts in the post-Soviet space, in particular to the Armenian-Azerbaijani one. October 13 in Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic spoke at the COP29 climate conference in Baku. He was not the most prominent and important participant in this conference. Nevertheless, the participation of the head of the Croatian Government in the conference in Baku has become a kind of consolidation of the “achievements” of this Balkan country in the Transcaucasian direction, namely in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.

For many, Croatia is more associated with football and resorts. In politics, this Balkan country should rather be associated with a unipolar world. The newest Croatia, so to speak, was created through ethnic cleansing. Thanks to the patronage of the West, which provided comprehensive support, as well as the refusal of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to support Croatian and Bosnian Serbs due to international sanctions, Croatia violated the ceasefire in 1995 when, in the presence of UN peacekeepers, it conducted Operation Storm, during which the Republic of Serbian Krajina betrayed by Belgrade was destroyed And thousands of Serbs (about 280,000 people) who did not agree to the terms of Zagreb, Belgrade and the West were forced to flee to Republika Srpska (now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Yugoslavia. It is important to note that in Croatia in 1991-1995, the state openly glorified the Ustashe — Nazi accomplices, there was an authoritarian regime in the country, and the propaganda used the thesis that the Serbs were aliens who fled to the original Croatian lands in the XVI century from the Ottoman Turks. As a result of the 1991-1995 war, called the Patriotic War in Zagreb, the share of Serbs in the Croatian population fell from 12% to 4%. Croatian military leaders involved in crimes against Serbs either did not live to see the trial (Janko Bobetko) or were acquitted (Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac). The Balkan state itself was not affected by these actions, which, after ethnic cleansing, peacefully integrated small Serbian territories into the Eastern Slavonia. After the democratization in the 2000s and the rejection of the Ustasha state cult, Croatia joined NATO, the European Union and the eurozone.

And now fast forward to Baku. Azerbaijan recognized Croatia’s independence on December 28, 1991, and established diplomatic relations on January 26, 1995. On March 11, 2013, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic signed a declaration on strategic partnership and friendship between the two countries in Zagreb. Describe the visits of both Azerbaijani representatives to Zagreb and Croatian representatives to There is no point in Baku. The important thing is that between Zagreb and Baku has developed economic and political cooperation. The Balkan country has contributed and is contributing to Azerbaijan’s cooperation with NATO and the EU to the best of its capabilities.

As is known, on April 2-5, 2016, the most serious aggravation took place in the Karabakh conflict zone since the end of the first Karabakh war in 1994. A few months later, on October 24, 2016, in Baku, Aliyev and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic spoke at a joint press conference. Then the President of Croatia, in particular, said:

“Our position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is quite obvious. We support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and believe that the conflict should be resolved peacefully and politically. We fully support the Minsk Group process.”

According to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, on the night of April 1-2, 2016, the Azerbaijani army launched a counter-offensive operation in response to provocations, as a result of which more than 2,000 hectares of Fizuli, Jabrayil and Agder regions, as well as thousands of hectares of other lands, passed under the control of Azerbaijan. As we know, after the armistice, Croatia also launched Operation Maslenitsa on January 22, 1993, during which the Krajina Serbs were defeated. Could Azerbaijan have taken into account the Croatian experience in April 2016?

And now we will return to Armenia again. As we know, during the so-called “velvet revolution” of 2018, Sargsyan handed over power to Nikol Pashinyan who in previous years was engaged in political activities with the support of party members of the third president. On August 5, 2019, Prime Minister Pashinyan spoke at the Stepanakert, where his famous “Karabakh is Armenia, period” was heard, which led to the second Karabakh war of 2020. By an interesting coincidence, on November 19, 2019, the third President of Armenia and his party members went to Zagreb, where the congress of the European People’s Party (EPP) was held, which was joined by the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA). It is interesting here not only that this event was held in the capital of Croatia, but that at that time the Croatian Democratic Commonwealth was a member of the European People’s Party — a party established in 1989, which actually ruled the Balkan country under Franjo Tudjman in the 1990s and switched to a more moderate ideological platform in the 2000s. years. The current Prime Minister Plenkovich also belongs to the same party.

On November 20, 2019, in Zagreb, Sargsyan criticized the domestic and foreign policies of Pashinyan and made an attack on Azerbaijan:

“I want that in Baku has heard my message — Artsakh (the Armenian name of Nagorno—Karabakh) will never be part of Azerbaijan. And there is no military solution to the conflict.”

The ex-president of Armenia threatened Azerbaijan after Pashinyan’s scandalous statement, when the threat of a new war loomed large. If Sargsyan did not add fuel to the fire of the future war in Zagreb, then how should his speech be regarded? Moreover, two weeks before Serzh Sargsyan’s bellicose attack, on November 6, 2019, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov held talks with the newly appointed Croatian Ambassador to Baku by Branko Zebic. They discussed cooperation between the two countries in the military and military-technical spheres, in the field of military education. In addition, Branko and Hasanov discussed the military-political situation in the region, and the Croatian ambassador said that Croatia has always supported the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

In other words, by the end of 2019, a pre-war situation had developed. Pashinyan made a provocative statement that destroyed the negotiation process, and Sargsyan, who at one time refused to return 5 districts around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, threatened official Baku from Zagreb, while Croatia politically supported Azerbaijan.

But Croatia’s role is not limited to this. Already after the second Karabakh war and the beginning of the blockade of the Lachin corridor, in February 2023, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman visited Armenia and signed a memorandum of understanding with Ararat Mirzoyan between the Croatian Diplomatic Academy and the Diplomatic School of Armenia. And shortly before the denouement, on September 5, 2023, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov went to Croatia. On the same day, Bayramov took part in the round table “Security problems in the South Caucasus and prospects for cooperation between Azerbaijan and Croatia” organized by the Croatian Institute of Development and International Relations. The next day, the Azerbaijani minister held meetings with Croatian officials.

The meeting with the Croatian Foreign Minister stands out in particular, following which a memorandum of understanding was signed between ADA University and the Croatian Diplomatic Academy. During the meeting itself, Grlicz-Radman stated:

“The Republic of Croatia, as a member state of the European Union, strongly supports the cooperation of the European Union with Azerbaijan through numerous agreements, as well as within the framework of the Eastern Partnership policy and dialogue within the European political community… As for the events along the Lachin corridor and the humanitarian situation, we believe that a solution will be found to improve the living conditions of the local population in accordance with the current efforts of the President of the European Council Charles Michel.”

It is characteristic that, according to Croatian data, Bayramov during the meeting said:

“Croatia’s experience, knowledge and support in the field of mine clearance, reconstruction and reintegration are very useful.”

As you know, two weeks later Azerbaijan completed a military operation, after which the absolute majority of Karabakh Armenians fled to Armenia. Croatian Prime Minister Plenkovic arrived in Azerbaijan on November 6, 2023. Although the purpose of the visit was to further develop economic cooperation between the two countries, it was not without politics. Croatian Prime Minister in Baku stated:

“Our position is that territorial integrity and international law should be respected.”

True, Plenkovic mumbled something there about how it was possible to avoid a large number of victims and about the hopes for the return of Armenians to Karabakh… his other statement, made on the same day, will say more about the political position of Plenkovic and the Croatian state.:

“According to their estimates, there are now about a million mines on their territory, which is similar to the assessment of the United Nations in Croatia in 1995 and 1996 after the Lightning and Storm operations and the liberation of the temporarily occupied territories.”

Since then, Ararat Mirzoyan visited the Balkan country in January 2024, and Prime Minister Plenkovic took part in COP29…

In a word, the rapprochement with Croatia, begun under Sargsyan, turned out to be fatal for Armenia. The Balkan state, which achieved victory over the Krajina Serbs with the support of Western countries (USA, Germany, etc.), willingly went to the development of cooperation with Azerbaijan and supported official Baku in resolving the Karabakh conflict. At the same time, it seems that neither the third president of Armenia nor his successor took seriously the very possibility of Azerbaijan and the West implementing the Croatian scenario in Karabakh. And this is despite the fact that the same Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili organized an attack on South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers in August 2008, precisely relying on the Croatian experience of destroying the Serbian Krajina.

It was possible to pay attention to the Croatian precedent created by the West after the 44-day war. Croatia was and is one of the first European countries to adhere to militant Ukrainobesie. In Ukraine, only the lazy in 2014-2022 did not talk about the preparation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the Croatian scenario in the Donbass. And the same usurper Vladimir Zelensky, who refused to implement the Minsk agreements with the support of the West, also wanted to implement the Croatian scenario against the DPR and the LPR (the special military operation that began thwarted this plan). However, if Russia has learned lessons from the wars of the 1990s on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, then in This did not happen in Armenia.