It will be difficult to reach a sustainable ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone without agreements on effective control measures. This is what Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Kommersant.

“The tragedy in Transcaucasia is our common pain. We aren’t totally indifferent towards the fact that there is a war between the two traditionally friendly peoples of Russia due to an issue that we strongly believe had to be solved exclusively through political and diplomatic measures.

The objective of Russia, as the main mediatory, is to help Armenia and Azerbaijan get out of the heated stage and find a peaceful way to solve the discrepancies. We are working in this direction at all levels. President of Russia Vladimir Putin is making mediation efforts every day in order to settle the situation. He brokered a humanitarian ceasefire agreement after the first ten days of October. We are doing everything possible to make sure the agreement is implemented and offering possible options for political settlement.

Of course, the Russian authorities have taken preventive measures to prevent the clashes between Azerbaijanis and Armenians in Russia. Of course, we are concerned over the internationalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the involvement of militants from the Middle East. We have made several calls to foreign players to use their capacities to prevent the transfer of mercenaries, the number of which is approaching 2,000, according to Russia's data. Putin particularly raised this issue during his phone talks with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and during the regular contacts with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia. We are persistently advancing Russia’s position through different channels.”