The latest fulminant armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh will at least end up with an absolute Armenian exodus from this region. Nearly all the 120,000 Armenians dwelling in Nagorno-Karabakh are going to move to Armenia. A statement to that effect came from Western media citing the unrecognized republic’s leadership following Azerbaijan’s de facto-established control over the region amid "counter-terrorism measures of a local nature", as Baku put it.

David Babayan, as adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan — the fifth and perhaps the last NKR president, — reported on the upcoming mass Armenian exodus and assured that his people would "not be part of Azerbaijan." Along with the rest of factors, this implies Yerevan's complete and utter loss of control over this territory, with its subsequent virtual consolidation with Azerbaijan.

Having pushed Azerbaijan to foment an armed conflict in Russia’s southern underbelly through Turkey’s proxy, provoking Moscow to intervene and create another international challenge at its borders, the United States is now screening itself behind public peace and humanitarian statements. The US and the EU have expressed "profound concern" about the fate of Karabakh Armenians. Meanwhile, a clear thing is that their upcoming exodus from the historically inhabited region is due to their fears of repression and ethnic cleansing on the part of Azerbaijan, despite public refutations of the latter.

"Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. 99.9% prefer to leave our historic lands," Britain’s Sky News quoted David Babayan as saying. "The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilized world." He said it was unclear when the 120,000 of Karabakh Armenians would move down the Lachin corridor linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

Meanwhile, the corridor is being actually blocked by Azerbaijan, with Baku reiterating that civilians are not going to be harmed. But even the Western media admit that many Armenians died in the course of Azerbaijan’s "counter-terrorist operation". NKR evidence suggest that Armenians are forced to sleep in basements and right in the streets, suffering from acute food, fuel and medicine shortages. They cannot reach out to their relatives in rural areas, though other reports claim that Russian peacekeepers stationed in the region have already evacuated those.

The potential exodus marks not just another pivotal moment in the region’s turbulent and bloody history, as it has long been a stumbling block in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It may fundamentally affect the former’s enough unstable internal affairs. At the moment, Yerevan is seething with demonstrations involving explicitly anti-Russian people, regardless of their loyalty to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The migrants may become a major driving force in ousting him as the one who failed to protect them from Azerbaijan. This immigrant sentiment is feared to be used by external and internal pro-Western forces for at least two purposes: to shake up Armenia’s internal situation, and alienate it from Russia.

At the moment, that country’s ruling class has made Russia and its peacekeepers appear as a kind of political lightning rod to sustain blame for all the failures in the long-term conflict with Azerbaijan. Small wonder that in his September 24 video message to the nation, Nikol Pashinyan said the Karabakh events raised serious issues about the goals and motives of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the region. He blamed Baku and Russian peacekeepers for the potential exodus of Armenians.

In the same context, Pashinyan stated that NKR developments have exposed inefficiency of external security systems Armenia is engaged in — referring, of course, to Russia. This makes Yerevan seeking to strengthen its statehood and security, for which intends, among other things, to ratify the Rome Statute, which is allegedly not directed against the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) or Russia. But Pashinyan's outburst against the "external security system" does imply things are targeting Russia after all. He further said Armenia must be free, sovereign, and democratic. "This almost open and transparent choice is being made in the internal political field of Armenia, and every citizen must make a choice: he is a participant in the movement for independence or a submissive backyard." An obvious direct implication against Russia, whose "backyard" Armenia allegedly is. A cynical move to play upon national heartstrings.

Pashinyan and his Western partners use the all but predetermined Armenian exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh to switch the vector of Armenia's future to the West nearly overnight. And one shouldn't wonder if within a short time Pashinyan’s Armenia submits an application to join NATO cast in the role of "security guarantor".