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Did Putin Inspire Yesterday's Armenia/Azerbaijan Conflict As Warning To EU Over Gas? [1]

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Date: 2022-09-13

To answer your question, this conflict:

Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday night killed almost 100 soldiers, it has emerged. Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said 49 of its soldiers died in overnight clashes, while Azerbaijan's defence ministry said 50 of its servicemen were also killed. The neighbouring countries have fought two wars and seen regular smaller clashes span three decades.

Both countries were formerly part of the Soviet Union and Russia has been acting as a peace-keeper, including arranging a ceasefire in this conflict. Both are officially neutral in the war on Ukraine although Armenia is closer to aligned to Moscow. The Armenians are predominantly Christian and Azerbaijan predominantly Muslim. Historically Russia was seen as the Armenians’ protectors from the Muslim hoardes.

Azerbaijan has gas reserves and pipes gas to the EU. Earlier this year agreements were reached to increase this to replace part of the gas previously supplied by Russia.

BRUSSELS, July 18 (Reuters) - The European Commission signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday with Azerbaijan to double imports of Azeri natural gas to at least 20 billion cubic metres a year by 2027. "Today, with this new Memorandum of Understanding, we are opening a new chapter in our energy cooperation with Azerbaijan, a key partner in our efforts to move away from Russian fossil fuels," Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

On Monday

Azerbaijan will increase natural-gas exports to Europe this year by 30 percent as the EU seeks to lessen its dependence on Russian energy amid the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said that over the eight months of this year, Baku "supplied to Europe 7.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas." "The overall volume of (gas) supplies to Europe in 2022 will amount to 12 billion cubic meters" -- a 31 percent increase compared to 2021, he said on Twitter. He also reported a nearly 10 percent increase in gas production, which reached 30.6 billion cubic meters in January-August 2022.

Both countries have seperate stories for how this week’s fighting started.

Armenia claimed that several towns along the border had been shelled by its neighbour and that it had responded to the provocation. Azerbaijan said its infrastructure came under attack first, with military spokesman Lt Col Anar Eyvazov saying that military movements over the past month "demonstrate that Armenia is preparing for a large-scale military provocation".

I am of course not suggesting that Putin instructed a member of Russia’s new Warsaw Pact, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, to attack and take over Azerbaijan’s gas fields. On the other hand “brokering a ceasefire” reminds the Azeris who the big boy in town is. Perhaps they should not be quite so mean and interfer in his plan to freeze out Europe. They have a nice little gas business and he might not be around to stop those crusaders from Armenia from hurting it.

I sincerely apologise to Vladimir Vladimirovich if I have maligned him and totally misunderstood his noble intent to de-Nazify Ukraine by freezing Europeans and staving Africans. No doubt he will explain this when he is crowned Tzar of the New Russian Empire stretching from the Irish Sea to the Pacific. I was obviously wrong in finding the timing convenient.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/13/2122712/-Did-Putin-Inspire-Yesterday-s-Armenia-Azerbaijan-Conflict-As-Warning-To-EU-Over-Gas

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