Since the intensification of military operations started in Karabakh, Russia has moved psyops specialists working with Russian military intelligence to the area. Earlier these people were actively involved in covering military operations and spreading disinformation and propaganda in Syria, Ukraine and Libya by using media channels owned by the Russian Ministry of Defense or telegram channels created and administered by the Main Intelligence Directorate. In Nagorno-Karabakh these very specialists work on the Armenian side. Generally, the narratives of these psyops operations are the same as the ones carried out in Ukraine and Syria. The narratives are the following: an exaggeration of enemy losses, the information dissemination about civilian targets shelling. Since the beginning of October, a religious component has appeared among the Russian propaganda narratives. Thus, Russian propaganda tries to present theKarabakh conflict as a religious war between Muslims and Christians, which is far from reality. On October 8, the GRU-linked telegram channel published an article about the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi allegedly shelled by Azerbaijani military aviation. Earlier, on October 5, one more informational Russian-language project involved in the Russian psyops operations called the Karabakh conflict ‘an anti-Armenian jihad backed by Turkey’. Since October,8 afternoon these very Russian media campaign specialists have been trying to accuse Turkish aircraft in bombing the cathedral in Shushi; as they said the aircraft had attacked the building from the territory of Azerbaijan. To prove this ‘fact’ they use frames of an unknown piece of marked metal having no relation to the mentioned cathedral. Undoubtedly, the Kremlin’s attempt to accuse Ankara of bombing Christian religious buildings directs to Moscow’s attempts to destabilize NATO’s integrity through Turkey whom the Russians consider as the Alliance’s greatest vulnerable spot. The religious background introduced in the Karabakh conflict and Turkish factor enables the Kremlin to try to initiate centrifugal processes in NATO with France and Greece involved. Moscow believes that Paris can support pressure on Ankara and Baku, taking into account the large Armenian diaspora in France and President Macron’s statements to curb Muslim separatism in France.
In the meantime, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Ukraine issued a statement condemning the call of the Azerbaijani parliament member from the pro-Russian ‘For Life’ faction to support the Armenians in the religious war against Muslims. The faction leader held a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and the US State Department imposed sanctions against one of the pro-Russian MPs in the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Derkachach, for interference in the US elections and cooperation with Russian intelligence.
Obviously, the Kremlin is trying to use the Karabakh conflict to unite the Christian worldwide community around itself and position Russia as the defenders of the Orthodox. It is quite clear that such a step confronts with Turkey and can be used by the Kremlin to form anti-President Erdogan opposition in Europe.
On our estimates, Moscow’s attempt to religiolize the Karabakh conflict may be targeted at provoking a conflict in Europe where the proportion of the Muslim population has significantly increased after the 2015-1017 migration crisis. A lot of Armenians live in France and Italy. The Turkish diaspora supporting Baku is in Germany. By conflicting interests of various religious and ethnic groups in Europe, Russia can actualize the internal conflict in the EU by weakening Brussels and sparking frictions between countries and various population groups.
