Beverly Hills Mayor Denounces Hateful Flyers Aimed at Armenians

In 2020, following a six-week war that left thousands dead, Russian President Vladimir Putin installed peace-keeping troops along the Lachin corridor, connecting Armenians to medicines, food, and “living a normal life,” says Harut Sassounian, an Armenian-American columnist and editor of the California Courier.

“Genocide is not only the mass killing of people, but the definition is also about creating conditions of life that lead to the killing of people, by starving them, depriving them of medicine, cutting off the heat and electricity in the mountains where it is below zero,” he writes.

Putin’s attention has turned to Ukraine, but tensions in the region have bubbled up again over a blockade by Azerbaijani activists that has left Armenians cut off from everyday necessities. The New York Times, citing a local reporter inside the region, writes that the only items left on supermarket shelves are alcohol and candy.

The International Crisis Group, a nonprofit conflict watchdog, warns that the showdown may become as intractable and bloody as the war in Ukraine.

“The Russian peacekeepers are supposed to intervene to prevent this sort of blockade, but they allowed them to come in an area that they don’t belong,” Sassounian says. “Many Armenians who have settled in this area are from that region… they feel very personally involved in this conflict.”

Chairman of the Armenian Rights Watch Committee of the Armenian Bar Association Alex Bastian says that hate crimes against his countrymen are not only on the rise but have also gone largely unnoticed by the international community. St. Gregory’s Armenian church in San Francisco, where he was baptized, was hit by a firebomb in 2020; the attack remains unsolved. The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information about those responsible.