A person who fights religion is fighting his history and his people – Alexander Kots

Speaking with Alpha News, Alexander Kots, military correspondent for “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, commented on the relations between Russia and Azerbaijan amid recent events in Yekaterinburg, Azerbaijan’s announcement of a possible NATO base on its territory, and Nikol Pashinyan’s attacks on the Church.

“As for allied relations with Azerbaijan, I’ve written and said more than once that in fact they do not exist now. In general, the Agreement on Allied Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan was signed, if I am not mistaken, a day or two before the start of the special military operation. Had the signing been scheduled after the operation began, I am sure Aliyev would not have signed this agreement. Therefore, he is acting within the paradigm of countries that believe Russia has no reason for conducting military actions on the territory of a neighboring state. In fact, all his rhetoric of the past few months suggests that this person has some inflated ideas about his geopolitical importance,” Kots said.

Addressing Nikol Pashinyan’s attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church, the military correspondent drew parallels with Ukraine and warned of societal division.

“Well, in general, attacking religion is a rather dangerous move for Pashinyan, because he apparently has not learned from Ukraine’s experience—nor has Aliyev, with his NATO base rhetoric or rather, with statements through media reports, because this is a purely Ukrainian path. Let me remind you that in Ukraine, they first targeted family ties, ties with Russia. To completely cut the final threads, they attacked religion, which led to a religious schism on the territory of Ukraine, where now there is both the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the non-canonical Orthodox Church. If Pashinyan wants to follow Poroshenko’s path, I have bad news for him. A person who fights religion is fighting his history, his past, and his people. And the people cannot tolerate this for long. To be honest, I would not like Armenia, a brotherly country to us, to follow the path of religious division. Unfortunately, there have been such examples in the world, and this has led to very tragic consequences,” Kots concluded.