Putin's Empire Starts to Crumble
VAYOTS DZOR PROVINCE, ARMENIA – The frequency of the ambulances starts to increase the further east you drive. It’s a sign of how bad the situation is. A mix of four-wheel-drive military trucks with red crosses and civilian ambulances are whisking away Armenian casualties in a steady trickle through the mountains.
More than 200 soldiers and civilians have been killed here over the past two weeks; hundreds more have been wounded. It’s the most serious fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia in two years.
On the evening of Sept. 12th into the 13th, Azerbaijan carried out a massive attack across a broad front along the rugged border with their neighbor. The Azeris have advanced inside Armenia to within a few miles of Jermuk, a spa town whose mineral water can be bought in bottles throughout the country.
On the Jermuk highway, a convoy of Russian soldiers heads west, away from the fighting, white-blue-and-red tricolors streaming proudly behind each dark green Kamaz truck as it passes busloads of Armenian reinforcements heading the other way, toward the border. There are Russian soldiers across the region: thousands are in a contested area within Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh, where they have been since November 2020, when Moscow brokered a ceasefire between the two Former Soviet Republics after a short, but intense, conflict. There are also thousands of Russian soldiers and border guards stationed in Armenia itself – their job is to deter military adventurism.
The Kremlin’s soldiers are here to keep the peace.
In this, they have failed.
