The Geopolitics and Empire podcast is joined once again by Nikola Mikovych, who is a freelance journalist in Serbia, covering Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and political developments in the Balkans.

He writes for Juan Cole's informed comments among numerous other publications. We'll be talking Turkey, Turkey, Russia, US, NATO, that is, as well as what China is doing in the Balkans and Dunbass, Belarus, and Armenia. How are things in Serbia, Nicola? So far, so good, I would say hi. And thank you for having me on your show again. Yeah, it's great to have you back. I love your writing. I need to get you on more often. I think it's been, I think we last spoke

last summer almost a year ago, so I'll be sure to have you on more often. Perhaps we could

start alphabetically with Armenia or maybe, you know, maybe just because they had their elections

a few days ago. Prime Minister Paschignan is back. He won by a majority. And you think now

Armenia will begin to normalize relations

with Azerbaijan and Turkey. So, you know, give us your thoughts. I think so. I think Yeravan does not

have much choice because it's a Yeravan is, actually, Armenia is a defeated country. It lost

the war against Azerbaijan. Last year, there was a war over Nagorno-Karabat that was controlled by the ethnic Armenians for

two decades or so.

And now it will have to make unilateral concessions to Azerbaijan and also to Turkey, that is now

the official ally of Azerbaijan.

Unfortunately, Armenia cannot count on Russia's help. Russia proved to be a completely

unreliable ally during the war because it refused to provide assistance to his nominal ally,

a member of the security collective treaty organization.

Russia did not want to interfere in order to provide any weapons to Armenia.

Unlike Turkey that supplied Azerbaijan with modern sophisticated weapons,

primarily drones by Raktar that proved to be very efficient.

Not so long ago, the Azeri troops reportedly entered the Armenian territory and captured

some villages or a small portion of Armenian territory. And Armenia asked Russia and security

collective treaty organization for help, but as we see, Russia did not intervene again. So Armenia

cannot count in Russia and does not have any other allies. And basically, Yerran is on its own

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