YEREVAN. – 168 Zham daily spoke with renowned Russian military analyst and columnist Pavel Felgenhauer. Below is an abridged version of the interview.

“The European Games kicked off in [the Azerbaijan capital city of] Baku, after which some analysts inform bad news about the threat of resumption of the [Karabakh] war (…). In your view, will there be [military] operations?     

“In principle, you cannot rule out an escalation of the situation after the European Games, even large-scale military operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, especially if we consider that more intensified border incidents take place in this conflict zone in the month of August.

“But the claim that the tension could move across the entire line of contact of the conflict is not apparent to me. First, you need to be very well prepared for such large-scale [military] operations (…). But there are no such activities today. (…) But there may be clashes, major clashes, whereas large-scale [military] operations do not take place at once; for this, it is necessary to prepare the attacking positions, which[, however,] will be immediately noticeable by the adversary.”