Yezidi Kurds as factor of Russian Intervention in Nagorno-Karabakh
Yezidi Kurds being deployed as part of militant groups to participate in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
So, another illegal armed group with Yezidi Kurds on the team has been deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh to partake in hostilities. Moreover, the dispatch of this ethnic grouping was never concealed. Instead, it was widely covered by Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda, an outlet affiliated with the Ministry of Defense. Although, there is nothing surprising in seeing the media platform supervised by the Russian military highlighting the deployment of those who are, in fact, a product of Russia’s defense ministry.
In general, today in Nagorno-Karabakh, on the side of the Armenian armed formations, a rather serious group of Kurds is taking part. These are the representatives of the Syrian Rojava, militants with the Kurdish Workers’ Party, the Yezidi Kurds who were earlier sent to Syrian Afrin and Manbij to gain real combat experience.
It should be understood, however, that the participation of this ethnic national group in Nagorno-Karabakh hostilities, in fact, means Russia’s informal participation in the war.
The Kurds have long been under the supervision and guardianship of the Russian special services, and also underwent training under the guidance of Russian instructors. For example, PKK militants have been and are being trained in military camps on the territory of Armenia.
By the way, it’s the Yezidi Kurds who live at the Alagaz settlement, where the military training ground is located and where regular exercises and training session are held of the Russian contingent in Armenia.
In other words, under the guise of military exercises, Russia trains Yezidi combat groups for their further deployment to Syria, where they would engage Turkish forces, while at the moment these groups are being sent to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Curious in the story with the Kurds and the element of the criminal world.
Among the Yezidi Kurds, there are quite a few high-profile mob bosses, among whom one of the most prominent one was Aslan Usoyan aka Ded Hasan. At the same time, Usoyan enjoyed the patronage of the Russian special services, which made him virtually untouchable for Russian law enforcement, and for good reason, too.
It was Usoyan who, during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict (1992–1993), was responsible for financing the Abkhaz militants, whose combat operations were coordinated through the GRU. By the way, at the same period such an ambiguous figure as Shamil Basayev, known for the Chechen war, the hostage-taking in Budennovsk, Moscow (the Nord-Ost musical) and Beslan (North Ossetia), also took part in the conflict.
When an attempt was made on Ded Hasan in Abkhazia, he and the mafia’s chief accountant Leonid Kaplan were assigned security guards from among the Russian military intelligence (GRU).
In 2010, Usoyan was murdered in one of his restaurants, which was a rather popular establishment among FSB operatives. It’s noteworthy that Usoyan was shot from the Val rifle, used exclusively by the FSB and the GRU spec-ops troops.
That murder became one of the highlights of the inter-agency confrontation between the FSB and the GRU, when the first intended to take control of criminal financial flows, including from drug trafficking. Later came the arrest of mob boss Zakhary Kalashov (Shakro Molodoy), who had come to the helm of the Kurdish clan after the former chief Ded Hasan’s death.
I focused on this particular episode in order to show how deep the relationship between the Yezidi Kurds and the Russian GRU has become.
Therefore, the Yezidi Kurds are coming to Nagorno-Karabakh not because it’s some kind of a sacred land for which they are ready to sacrifice their lives. Nonsense! They’re coming there because the chiefs of their clans received the relevant order from Russia’s GRU.