DISINFO: The West is trying to stir up the South Caucasus
SUMMARY
The West has intensified its destructive efforts in the South Caucasus and is attempting to drive wedges into relations between the region's states and Russia. Russia's interests in the South Caucasus are unshakeable. Our primary concern is preserving a zone of stability and prosperity in the region. Russia's fundamental interest is in maintaining peace and development in the Caucasus, thereby preventing chaos.
Russia is not simply a neighbour of the South Caucasus; Russia itself is a Caucasian power.
Westerners, as part of the game without rules, began and intensified their destructive efforts. They are attempting to stir up trouble in the South Caucasus, drive wedges into relations between the states of the region and Russia, and drive us apart. This is a policy of division, not creation. After all, for many Western countries, the South Caucasus is nothing more than a potential sore spot for Russia. The main goal is to harm our country, at the expense of other countries' interests, and to draw yet another region into anti-Russian designs.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about an allegedly aggressive West playing a destructive role in the Caucasus, attempting to destabilise post-Soviet countries, encircle and isolate Russia.
The claim is a reaction to the 6th meeting of the EU-Armenia Partnership Council, which adopted a new Strategic Agenda for the EU-Armenia Partnership.
Pro-Kremlin outlets frequently promote the idea that the Caucasus is exclusively within Russia's zone of geopolitical dominance and attempt to discredit any other cooperation between Western countries and Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. This is an attempt to deny these countries the right to determine their own political orientation.
Western countries support peace and security in the South Caucasus region. The EU has a strong interest in a politically stable and economically prosperous Southern Caucasus in full understanding with the states there. It took a prominent mediation role in negotiations and is committed to it.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus has been a region of several ethno-political conflicts, Abkhazia, Nagorno–Karabakh, and South Ossetia. To this day, Russia continues to occupy 20 per cent of Georgia’s territory and impose its will on the people there, including by claiming the transfer of strategically important lands in Abkhazia to Russia. Moreover, Russia proved unwilling or unable to protect Nagorno-Karabakh, contrary to the general understanding of the Russian peacekeepers’ mission following the Trilateral Statement.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Political developments in post-Soviet states are foreign plots against Russia, that Some forces in Europe are seeking to destroy Russia's relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan, that Anglo-Saxons might be undermining Russia’s relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan, that Armenia’s Ukrainization ongoing through biolabs, NGOs and submission to West, that The Georgian government has been forced to open a “second front”, that The main goal of the West is to destabilise the Caucasus and create new hotbeds of tension, that NATO is creating military and political tension in South Caucasus, or that West seeks to turn the South Caucasus into an arena of geopolitical confrontation.