The West has left Armenia to fend for itself

Bomb shelters have come a long way since the Blitz. As missiles from Azerbaijan rained down on Nagorno-Karabakh a few weeks ago, Hayk Harutyunyan and his family took refuge in a basement with wifi, an ensuite toilet and a makeshift mini-bar. There were 12 people crammed in there every night, he told me, ‘but we Armenians are very close as family, so we get on well’.

Indeed, sipping brandy with them in their shelter, I was reminded of that other Armenian clan, the Kardashians, who spend their time sitting around and chatting. Keeping up with the Harutyunyans, however, makes for more challenging viewing.

Armenia, a Christian democracy in a neighbourhood dominated by Islamists and strongmen, has been left to fend for itself by the West. Neighbouring Azerbaijan wants control of its Nagorno-Karabakh region, and though there has officially been a ceasefire since 1994 — it’s a ‘frozen conflict’ in diplomat-speak — the three decades since have looked less like peace and more like an undeclared Thirty Years War. At least 3,500 people have died in cross-border skirmishing, with both sides engaged in shelling, sniping and commando raids across Flanders-style front lines. And that’s not even counting the 1,200-plus casualties in the latest flare-up. On Monday night, after Azerbaijani forces captured the strategically important Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shusha, a ceasefire was agreed. But it’s one which makes most Armenians extremely uneasy. Many are protesting against the peace deal, and they remain on edge and ready for war.

For Nagorno-Karabakh’s 150,000 citizens, a state of constant readiness for war feels normal. In the time-warped Soviet-era capital, Stepanakert, murals and monuments extol the glories of the conflict. A well-drilled system of air-raid sirens gives people time to scramble into their bomb shelters. And everyone I met there had either a relative already serving on the front lines, or was about to volunteer for duty themselves.