While Armenia is one footstep from its own Maidan, the Russian Defense Ministry is developing ‘scientific’ methods of fighting against Maidans with the help of specialists from the Caucasus.
Gyumri as Sevastopol?
Russia managed to preserve its strategic naval base in Sevastopol. But to do so, they to tear the entire Crimea off a ‘rebellious’ Ukraine. And what should be done to save the garrison in Gyumri – the only Russian military base in the southern Caucasus? Mass protests in Yerevan are getting more and more similar to the start of Maidan in Kyiv.
But the first ‘electric protest’ in Yerevan was pacified by using water cannons, not only policemen’ batons. However, Armenian people outraged by the brutality and sadism of security forces returned to Bagramyan Avenue – like Ukrainians after riot police’s battering students in Institutskaya street in Kyiv.
People also began to take in the streets of other cities – including in Gyumri, where 4,000 Russian soldiers are deployed. And they will be there until 2044 … Even top officials say that this base of high geopolitical importance is one of the main foundations of the current bilateral relations between Russia and Armenia. Not surprisingly, the Kremlin is looking at the events in Armenia as closely as it oversaw the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity.
‘Electric’ political rebellion
But Russia is keeping an eye on Armenia as it bears a direct relation the protests in the Armenian cities . Company ‘Electric Network of Armenia’, that recently announced nearly 20 percent rise in electricity prices, is only nominally Armenian: it belongs to the Russian company Inter RAO.
The same can be said about President Sargsyan: under his rule Armenia, that has traditionally been pro-Russian, dropped to the level of Belarus. Last year was marked by its accession to the Kremlin project – the Eurasian Economic Community.
Thus, in addition to economic demands, demonstrators in Yerevan started to put forward political slogans criticizing corrupted pro-Moscow authorities. Pro-Putin Russian journalists are also judged on its merits. When they were covering the events in Armenia, protesters showed posters saying ‘Rossiya-24, go f*ck youself!’, ‘Don’t be dopy!’ They were outraged at Moscow reporters’ comments on events in Yerevan – they seemed to have been made by the ‘Ukrainian’ pattern.
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Colour revolutions instead of dreaming in colour
According to recent reports of Russian influential newspaper Kommersant, the ghost of another colour revolution is likely to remove blinkers from the eyes of the Kremlin leadership. Its sources say that it is the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that has been involved in methodical developments in the field of counering social unrest.
Council is good, army is better
Earlier, the issue of colour revolutions was the responsibility of the Security Council, Kommersant says and stresses that on June, 22 its head Nikolai Patrushev gave the newspaper an extensive interview in which he warned against threats that color revolutions in neighboring countries pose to Russia.
Previously, the scientific council at the Security Council has recommended a number of measures to prevent any destabilization under a ‘coloured’ scenario in Russia itself – including curtailing people’s activity in social networks and fight against forming of romantic and revolutionary stereotype in the society.
Delegating these tasks to the Ministry of Defense seems to be a thought-out step. In its history the Russian army often harnessed revolutionary romantics’ aspirations – at home and abroad. But what for is it necessary now and where are these threats come from? As recent surveys say, public support for Putin’s actions has reached new historical records: 89 % of Russians are in favour of the policy of their president …
Czarek Goliński/MS
