Russian MP threatened Azerbaijan with a nuclear strike, the Kremlin had to intervene

JAMnews

Baku

Russian MP called for Azerbaijan to be ‘

Deputy of the Russian State Duma Mikhail Delyagin, speaking at the state television of the Russian Federation, called for the “punishment” of Azerbaijan for “aggressive actions” in Karabakh. He also conducted a survey on the topic of whether “is it worth it to hit the oil industry of Azerbaijan with nuclear weapons”. The Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov and the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, had to intervene in this matter. Only after that Delyagin apologized to the Azerbaijanis.

What happened?

On the air of Russian state television, Mikhail Delyagin, deputy of the Russian State Duma from the Just Russia party, deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Economic Policy, called for the “punishment” of Azerbaijan. The MP did not like Azerbaijan’s “aggression” in Karabakh, in particular, the fact that the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry called out the lies of its Russian colleagues, who announced the withdrawal of the Azerbaijani army from the positions occupied on March 24.

On March 24, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces occupied the village of Farrukh in the east of Karabakh, where the Russian peacekeeping forces are temporarily stationed, as well as the strategically important height of Dashbashi. The leadership of the Azerbaijani army explained their actions by clarifying the location of troops.
In Baku, the movement of the army in Karabakh is explained by the failure by Armenia and the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation to comply with the conditions of the 4th paragraph of the tripartite statement of November 10, 2020, according to which the Armenian armed forces must leave Karabakh.

After speaking on air, Mikhail Delyagin, in his own Telegram channel, conducted a survey on the topic of a nuclear strike on the oil industry of Azerbaijan.

The speech of the deputy on television and the poll he conducted caused a wave of outrage in Azerbaijan. There have been calls to declare extremist the Russian Just Russia party, of which Delyagin is a member.

Azerbaijani MP’s response

Deputy of the Milli Majlis (Azerbaijani parliament) Rasim Musabekov also commented on the statements of the Russian politician.

“Zhirinovsky is on his deathbed and for his role as the most outrageous Russian politician in the State Duma, a casting will be launched. One of the new deputies, Mikhail Delyagin, is clearly aiming for it.

No one anywhere, including Russia, takes him seriously as an economist. Apparently, therefore, he decided to excel in the field of geopolitics and military threats.

On March 28, on the air of the odious RTR program “60 Minutes”, he called for a military strike on the oil infrastructure of Azerbaijan. In the context of the embargo announced by the United States, the European Union and other Western countries on the purchase of Russian energy resources due to the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow did not come up with anything better than to artificially limit the supply of oil and gas from other exporting countries to create a shortage in the market and thwart sanctions .

To this end, on a far-fetched pretext, the shipment of Kazakh oil from Novorossiysk was stopped. Apparently, similar ideas are spinning in the heads of some of the unfortunate Kremlin strategists, and Delyagin was entrusted with their public approbation.

I would like to inform these people that Azerbaijan has the most modern and rich air defense and missile defense system in the post-Soviet space. It is based on two divisions of the latest S-300PMU2 Favorit acquired in Russia itself, a large number of Buk-MB, Tor-M2E, as well as the Israeli SPYDERSR (the famous Iron Dome) and Barak-8.

The air and missile defense of Azerbaijan effectively protected energy infrastructure facilities during the 44-day war in 2020.

I also recall the well-known words of the English writer Robert Lewis who said that: “… he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones at others”.

Delyagin’s political and social weight in Russia is so small that he is not able to ensure the security of even his own “fifth point”, not to mention the security of the energy infrastructure of the Russian Federation.

So he shouldn’t have irresponsibly spewed threats to destroy the oil infrastructure of so far friendly Azerbaijan from the TV screen of the state TV channel”, Musabekov told the minval.az website. Russia’s Roskomnadzor has blocked access to this news website.

The Russian community of Azerbaijan, headed by another deputy of the Milli Majlis, Mikhail Zabelin, also voiced its protest against Delyagin.

The Kremlin’s reaction

“Delyagin’s words about the possibility of Russian strikes on Baku’s oil fields in no way correspond to Moscow’s line”, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, commenting on Delyagin’s threats.

Peskov urged Delyagin to control his emotions and refrain from making unfriendly statements about Azerbaijan.

“This is a statement that has to do with personal emotions that seem to have ‘overflown’. We would urge [Delyagin] to control these emotions and refrain from such statements, especially with regard to our partners, Azerbaijan belongs to the category of partner states”, the Kremlin spokesman said.

“… we consider any such statements absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible. They in no way reflect the official position of our country, the Russian leadership, which is aimed at building allied interaction and strategic partnership with Baku. I am sure that the leadership of the State Duma will give an appropriate assessment to such provocative statements”, said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Delyagin’s apology

After the Kremlin’s harsh reaction towards the statement of the State Duma deputy Mikhail Delyagin, he apologized to the Azerbaijanis. On his Facebook page, he wrote:

“Press Secretary of the President and Supreme Commander of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov is absolutely right in his recommendation to control [my] emotions and not damage Russian-Azerbaijani relations, and I will fully implement these recommendations.

My statement and the survey conducted in the Telegram channel were addressed not to the Azerbaijani people and the state as a whole, but only to some part of the Azerbaijani bureaucracy, which, perhaps, decided that in the situation of diverting Russian forces for a military special operation, its peacekeepers can be neglected.

This decision was manifested, in my opinion, in the fact that after the message that the Azerbaijani troops occupied a settlement located in the zone of responsibility of our peacekeepers, our Ministry of Defense reported that after discussing the situation with the peacekeepers, the Azerbaijani troops returned back, and the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry very politely explained, that the Azerbaijani troops did not go anywhere.

Of course, in order to be heard, exaggerations had to be voiced – and I offer my most sincere apologies to people of all nationalities (not only Azerbaijanis) who felt frightened, offended and confused, or who experienced other negative emotions because of my words. (Of course, this does not apply to those who did not understand my words due to the fact that they only use obscene swear words in Russian).