Why Azerbaijan Stopped at Jermuk

Asbed asks the obvious question: if the goal was to instigate Russia and it failed, why did Azerbaijan stop at Jermuk instead of taking whatever it wanted? Aghajanian’s answer is direct. Azerbaijan was trying to push forward and open a corridor at the narrowest point of Armenian territory, from Jermuk toward Nakhijevan. She and Asbed discuss the distance, settling around 27 kilometers, and she notes Azerbaijani forces have since come within about seven kilometers, holding what she calls very strategic positions.

The emotional core of the clip is her claim that the army fought back against the commands it had. In her telling, Armenian soldiers reinforced Jermuk and pushed the Azerbaijani side back, acting against orders from Pashinyan’s government and against a scenario designed to force Russian engagement under the CSTO. She frames the soldiers’ resistance as the reason a wider corridor was not carved through Syunik in that moment.

This clip works because it combines a concrete geographic stake, the so-called Zangezur Corridor debate, with a charged accusation about the chain of command. For audiences tracking the South Caucasus, southern Armenia, and Azerbaijani pressure on Armenian territory, it personalizes the stakes: young soldiers holding a line their own government allegedly did not want held. It also feeds the broader argument running through the episode, that the interests of the people running the state and the interests of the country diverged. Presented as Aghajanian’s analysis, the account is the kind of specific, defiant story that resonates widely and invites viewers to weigh in.