Russia has sharply criticized Armenia for disclosing OSCE Minsk Group documents and correspondence without consent, calling it a breach of diplomatic ethics.
Yerevan has published internal materials from the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and correspondence between state leaders without prior agreement from the relevant parties. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called this a violation of diplomatic ethics.
According to TASS, Zakharova stated that the released documents contradict claims recently made by the Armenian government.
“The published UN and OSCE documents, which Russia actively helped draft and adopt, confirm that our country, both as a national mediator and a Minsk Group co-chair, consistently pursued a political-diplomatic resolution over three decades,” she said.
She emphasized that Russia’s position has always rested on two principles: respect for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and protection of the rights and interests of the native population of Nagorno-Karabakh, in line with internationally recognized norms.
Referring to a 2021 interview with then-Minsk Group co-chair Igor Popov, Zakharova said Popov had already refuted Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s claim that Russia’s proposals included returning seven regions to Azerbaijan without addressing Karabakh’s status.
She noted that these documents had been under discussion before the 2018 change of power in Armenia and that no party had outright rejected them, though full consensus was not reached. According to her, negotiations continued regularly until 2018–2019, when “the new Armenian administration effectively suspended substantive talks.”
Zakharova recalled that during this period, the Armenian leadership declared “Artsakh is Armenia” statements made in Stepanakert in March and August 2019.
She noted that the Second Karabakh War broke out in the fall of 2020 and was halted only through Russian mediation and the personal involvement of President Vladimir Putin.
She added that only Armenia’s position has changed since then, while the 2020 Moscow agreement, signed by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, clearly stated that discussions on Karabakh’s status would be postponed.
“In our view, the published documents clearly show that at various stages, there were genuine opportunities for a political and diplomatic resolution that considered the interests of the region’s population,” Zakharova concluded.
She said that realizing those opportunities required strategic vision and political will from both sides.
The Armenian government has published documents related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict negotiation process. These include internal records and publicly accessible materials that shed light on the pre-2020 negotiations.
