Can’t imagine Ukraine would harbor terribly much sympathy for Iran given the tens of thousands of Shahed drones that have been bombarding their cities that were either made in Iran or based on Iranian drone designs licensed to Russia. They probably figure that if Iran was fine starting this by selling such weapons to Russia that were certain to be used on Ukraine, then turnabout is fair play. They have basically no economy in Ukraine so they’re desperate for any way to make a buck to put back into military production for fending off their gigantic neighbor, anyway.

You aren’t going around calling Armenia a genocider nation, though, are you?

All the Western Azerbaijan stuff is tit for tat fodder Aliyev says to boost appeal with nationalists. Azeris get incensed when all the formerly occupied regions and NK get referred to as “Artsakh”, and its capital as Stepanakert after Stepan Shaumian whose forces murdered thousands of Azeris, or the cases of Armenian media calling Azerbaijan a fake nation younger than Coca-Cola that should go back to Mongolia or whatever. So because they find that sort of stuff humiliating, nationalists get a fuzzy feeling when Aliyev claps back and returns that by calling their cities and regions by Azeri names from before they were cleansed out of Armenia which he’ll sometimes do to shore up nationalist support. But in actuality Azerbaijan has been angling to get the borders demarcated and settled with an agreement that allows them to transit to their exclave as settling those uncertainties would bring an insane amount of money in which would be impossible if they actually attempted to conquer Armenia.

With respect to the siege, the context of it was that originally the ceasefire agreement stated the following:

6. The Republic of Armenia shall return the Kalbajar District to the Republic of Azerbaijan by November 15, 2020, and the Lachin District by December 1, 2020. The Lachin Corridor (5 km wide), which will provide a connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia while not passing through the territory of Shusha, shall remain under the control of the Russian Federation peacemaking forces.

As agreed by the Parties, within the next three years, a plan will be outlined for the construction of a new route via the Lachin Corridor, to provide a connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, and the Russian peacemaking forces shall be subsequently relocated to protect the route.

The Republic of Azerbaijan shall guarantee the security of persons, vehicles and cargo moving along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.

[…]

9. All economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked. The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions. The Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service shall be responsible for overseeing the transport connections.

As agreed by the Parties, new transport links shall be built to connect the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and the western regions of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan re-opened the Lachin corridor in a flash. Armenia however did not do the same for Azerbaijan to access its exclave and kept on dragging its feet on the topic. So Azerbaijan started doing more and more tactics to pressure Armenia into reciprocity like by having the supposed environmental protests. Armenia did not budge at all and eventually Azerbaijan determined that if Armenia wasn’t going to provide the access that the ceasefire called for then neither would it and so blocked the Lachin corridor, BUT they did have an alternative ready of supplies via Azerbaijan’s Aghdam road. The problem is that the NK Armenians absolutely loathed the idea of relying on Azerbaijan in any way. Here is an Armenian website’s article about the protests blocking Azeri supplies from coming on the Aghdam road, which they called a “road of death”. Another Armenian website here showing concrete barriers installed to prevent the wrong kind of aid from getting to them. It’s kind of a weird siege where people are setting up barriers to prevent aid from getting to their own people. Then again these were supporters of Ruben Vardanyan who was a stooge installed as Minister of State of NK a month before he got his Russian citizenship personally annulled by Putin so he could afterwards become a citizen of the state he was now a leading politician of.

Firstly, screw Russia for their part in making this conflict far bloodier and worse than it had to be.

Secondly, Armenia ethnically cleansed well over half a million people from not just contested Nagorno-Karabakh but the seven overwhelmingly Azeri regions of Kalbajar, Lachin, Qubadli, Zangilan, Jabrayil, Fuzuli and Aghdam surrounding it for their ‘buffer’, in which they would destroy Azeri cities, use their mosques as stables and settle Armenians from Syria and Lebanon. In both the first and second war for Karabakh Armenia was the side that killed more civilians whether it be through direct massacres like at Khojaly or by stunts like the missile strikes on Ganja in the second war. It is not unreasonable for Azerbaijan to get the territory back when it had hundreds of thousands of IDPs, well in excess of the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

I think you are thinking of Qatar which Israel struck nearly a year ago. Israel and the UAE are close partners who have similar goals for the region.

Unsurprising. Hezbollah was hard carrying Assad’s Syria while the big man was busy playing Candy Crush… now that the Assadists have nowhere else to go Hezbollah is the only option. The rest of Lebanon hates the Assadists for partially occupying Lebanon, Turkey hates them because they were also fighting each other in Syria, the neighboring mostly Sunni northwestern parts of Iraq generally also hate Assadists from Baathist era rivalries out to modern sectarian tensions, Jordan is extremely uninterested in bringing in controversial groups that could upset its relations with neighbors and the group had officially still been at war with Israel since 1967. Not many options left for those without the contacts to get to Assad’s gamer pad in Russia.

Hezb found the time in its schedule to shell Syria in March and recently Syria uncovered and liquidated some Hezbollah cells in the country that they say were intending to do some sabotage and assassionations. Not really sure why those are on the priority sheets at all while Israel is occupying their home turf.

Huge order sizes for military industries keeps the costs of production low in addition to exports bringing in cash from outside. So generally if a country wants a strong military but getting the money for it from taxes is problematic due to the political situation or state of the economy, they’ll try to export as widely as they can. Downside is that if someone you exported to does something nasty with those weapons then everyone who didn’t care for that will give you the side-eye

All these reports beg the question… have they found a country that ISN’T carrying out covert schemes in Canada?

I am not sure how reliable this other site is but they claim that mixed results came from the emergency meeting becuase the UAE rejected strong language directly mentioning Ethiopia or referring to external support. The meeting apparently did get language of condemnation of attacks against Sudan generically and that Sudan has a right to defend its sovereignty.

https://sudanhorizon.com/the-arab-leagues-decision-on-sudan-behind-the-scenes-the-significance-of-the-positions/

Unsurprising, they are quite tightly aligned.

The “Good Taliban, Bad Taliban” theory really did not age well at all for Pakistan

I’m sure Abdul is thrilled to be out of Homs province, that position had to suck with how much everyone hates each other there

The war situation has developed not necessarily to the Malian government’s advantage…

Apparently many Israeli people are also mad about Ukraine’s close relations with Turkey. (Turkey and Israel are in competing emerging power blocks)

The furthest away in their entire history being 17 minutes to midnight seems too dramatic imo but different strokes for different folks

These guys have been a meme for their entire existence

Tbh our country re-elected him so I can see why they’d get that impression