[1/2] Vehicles of Russian peacekeepers leaving Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region for Armenia pass an Armenian checkpoint on a road near the village of Kornidzor, Armenia September 22, 2023.
Images of fleeing Armenians at Russia's own peacekeeping base at an airport in Nagorno-Karabakh have been harder for them to watch.
But its handling of the Karabakh crisis has forced it into a blame game with Armenia and obliged it to defend its foreign policy in the region.
It now accuses him of triggering the crisis by saying - after Russian peacekeepers were deployed to Karabakh in 2020 following Armenia's defeat in a 44-day war - that he recognised Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.
Baku has long argued that Karabakh falls within its own borders, but Karabakh Armenians wanted Pashinyan to recognise their independence and unify them with Armenia.
Persons:
Irakli, Alexander Baunov, Russia's, Sergei Markov, Pashinyan, Dmitry Medvedev, Medvedev, Margarita Simonyan, Andrew Osborn, Gareth Jones
Organizations:
REUTERS, Armenian, Soviet, Carnegie, Karabakh, Protesters, Kremlin, Russian, Security Council, NATO, Thomson
Locations:
Karabakh, Armenia, Kornidzor, Russia, Azerbaijan Moscow, Kabul, U.S, Afghanistan, Nagorno, Turkish, Moscow, Azerbaijan, Soviet Union, Turkey, Iran, Ukraine, South Caucasus, Stepanakert, Russian, America, Baku ., Yerevan, Baku, Pashinyan