Armenia on Thursday implicated Russian peacekeepers of failing to secure ethnic Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh area and called for an international peacekeeping force to step in.

The behaviour of Russian peacekeepers is undesirable to us.

They have actually become silent spectators [in Karabakh], Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.Moscow has actually rebuffed the criticism.Russia released peacekeepers in Karabakh under a ceasefire it brokered in 2020 to end a six-week war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the long-disputed enclave.Earlier this month Armenia accused Azerbaijan of producing a humanitarian crisis in Karabakh by blocking the sole land link connecting the mountainous enclave to Armenia.Karabakhs 120,000 occupants are primarily ethnic Armenians and depend upon the important land link, called the Lachin passage.

The blockade has resulted in shortages of foods and medicines in the enclave, which has been managed by Armenian separatists since the territory broke away from Azerbaijan in 1991 and has actually been contested by the two countries ever since.

Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh anticipate Russia to say how it plans to get the Lachin passage uncloged, Pashinyan told a conference of his federal government on Thursday.Pashinyan said Russia had carried out to ensure the security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Seemingly implying that Moscow was either not able or unwilling to satisfy its commitments, Pashinyan said it should either look for a UN required for its peacekeepers, which would give them more authority to act, or permit a multinational peacekeeping contingent into the region.Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova turned down Pashinyans accusation.

The criticism of Russian peacekeepers in this circumstance is undesirable, she said.

Russian peacekeepers are doing everything possible to enhance the circumstance on the ground.

Azeri ecological activists have been obstructing the Lachin passage for over two weeks to object at what they state is unlawful mining in Karabakh.

The Azeri government says the demonstration is spontaneous and civilian transport is able to move easily in both instructions in between Armenia and Karabakh.But Yerevan has actually accused Baku of staging the demonstrations.On Thursday, the Armenian separatist authorities in Karabakh said they were suspending gold and copper-molybdenum mining by an Armenian industrial group in the enclave.When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan.

Around 30,000 individuals died in the ensuing conflict.Armenia and Azerbaijan combated another war over the territory in autumn 2020.

The battling claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered truce that saw Yerevan cede to Baku areas it had controlled for decades.