One of the worst atrocities committed by Azerbaijan against Armenia during the former’s raid last week concerns the rape, savage mutilation, and slaughter of a woman who served in the Armenian forces.

In the words of Army Chief of Staff Edward Asryan, speaking last Friday at Jermuk, one of the sites heavily shelled by Azerbaijan:

They committed atrocities in our combat positions against our servicemen, including women soldiers. I cannot find words to describe how they dismembered a female soldier, cut off her legs, fingers and stripped her naked. This is unheard of cruelty.

A video of these atrocities, apparently made by the Azeri soldiers themselves, which was emailed to me, shows piles of mutilated and decapitated Armenian soldiers, including the woman in question. She appears naked, with both of her arms and legs cut off. One of her eyes is clearly gouged out. A severed finger appears sticking out of her mouth, and another appears to be sticking out of her private parts.

It is a truly disturbing if not diabolical image. The Azeri soldiers videotaping their handiwork, which included several other mutilated and beheaded Armenian men, can be heard laughing and joking in the background.

The murdered woman was identified as “Anush Apetyan, 36, a mother of three children [who] was reportedly captured alive in Jermuk and then raped, tortured and dismembered by Azerbaijani soldiers.”

The severing of this woman’s fingers is a telltale sign that jihadist motives were behind the mutilation.

After all, Islamic scriptures are full of calls to terrorize, mutilate, and massacre infidels (non-Muslims). After declaring “I will cast terror into the hearts of infidels,” Allah calls on Muslims to “strike off their heads and strike off their every fingertip” (Koran 8:12). Similarly, “It is not for a prophet to have captives [of war] until he inflicts a massacre in the land” (Koran 8:67). Other penalties for infidels who “spread mischief in the land is death, crucifixion, cutting off their hands and feet on opposite sides…” (Koran 5:33).

It is also worth noting that the ancestors of modern day Turkey and Azerbaijan—especially the Ottomans, whom they venerate and seek to emulate—heavily relied on such psychological warfare tactics in the context of their prophet Muhammad’s well-known boast: “I have been made victorious with terror”—which included atrocities just like this.

Nor is the recent mutilations of this Armenian mother and her comrades an aberrant war crime. It has been on display since war first broke out between the two nations in late 2020. For example, Azeri soldiers “tortured beyond recognition” a mentally disabled Armenian woman by sadistically hacking off her ears, hands, and feet, before finally executing her.

Similarly, video footage showed camouflaged soldiers overpowering and forcing down an elderly Armenian man, who cries and implores them for mercy, as they casually try to carve at his throat with a knife.

Meanwhile, back in the West—where full and self-sacrificial support for Ukraine is deemed a "sacrament" of sorts—few if any media and politicians are saying a word about these ongoing atrocities against the Armenians.

The following article, written for RaymondIbrahim.com by Trey Blanton, on location in Armenia, discusses an important question: Whereas the U.S. and other Western nations have been immensely responsive to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they have showed zero interest in another, very similar provocation — Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenia.

Trey Blanton, STEPANAKERT, Artsakh (CINFUSA.org) — Azerbaijan’s two-day “diplomatic bombardment” came to an end Wednesday night after Armenia and the Azeris agreed to a cease-fire.

I refer to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s invasion of his sovereign neighbor as a “diplomatic bombardment” because, in the eyes of Azerbaijan, the use of bullying tactics with a military assault constitutes a valid foreign policy of forcing Armenia to accept peace on Aliyev’s terms — who has time for negotiations, after all?

I have been in the Republic of Artsakh for three months, and hope to stay another two, and three things have become apparent to me in this time concerning the Armenian people’s concerns:

• Unprovoked military assaults by Azerbaijan have become “the new normal” since the end of the 2020 war.
• Many Armenians fear that Armenian Prime Minister Nicol Pashinyan will offer up the Republic of Artsakh on a silver platter to placate Aliyev.
• There is a wide gulf in the way Europe and the United States responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, versus Azerbaijan’s invasion of Armenia.

I, as an American, think the last point bears asking, “Why?”

Both Ukraine and Armenia were absorbed into the former Soviet Union. Corruption and communism are connected enough to be practically synonymous, so it is not surprising that both countries have had to struggle with corruption since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In pushing for and achieving reforms, however, the trajectories of both nations have been widely divergent.

Transparency International’s 2021 report documents corruption in 180 countries. Based on those scores, Armenia is less corrupt that Ukraine.

Out of the 180 countries Armenia comes in 59th place, while Ukraine ranks 123rd, not much better than Russia, itself, which is the 139th most corrupt country.

So there is no special moral reason—no “moral high ground”—to explain why America and Europe are supportive of Ukraine.

What of American involvement with Ukraine?

President Barrack Obama’s administration has been shown to have orchestrated a coup that saw the overthrow of a neutral Ukrainian president, only to be replaced with an anti-Russian president.

Also, then Vice-President Joe Biden had publicly boasted that he threatened to withhold a billion dollars from Ukraine unless the government fired the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden for his role on the board of an energy company.

Turning to Armenia and Azerbaijan, Transparency International says of Armenia, “Armenia is a success story of the CPI in the last five years, improving 14 points since 2017 to a score of 49.”

One reason why Armenia doesn’t rate higher is because its progress has stalled owing to public discontent over Armenia’s capitulation to Azerbaijan, and PM Pashinyan’s sometimes harsh response to protesters.

Azerbaijan, on the other hand, doesn’t suffer from stalled reforms because they still haven’t begun any:

“Azerbaijan has remained in the bottom third of the CPI since 2012, its score oscillating between 25 and 30. In 2017, the Azerbaijani Laundromat investigation revealed how a vast slush fund financed the regime’s reputation laundering by making payments – mostly through Danske Bank – to politicians across Europe, while jailing outspoken opposition and media figures at home.”

Azerbaijan is so prolific at bribing international politicians that a term for it, “Caviar Diplomacy,” was created to describe Azeri efforts.

Azerbaijan’s efforts aren’t limited to “traditional” politicians, like Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, but the oil-rich autocracy has also pumped money into the Vatican.

Some western so-called intellectuals will discount the role of Islam in Azerbaijan’s assault on Christian Armenians because they renovated holy Catholic sites.

The Quran allows for Muslims to use deceptive practices to divide and conquer Christians, as well as others they consider unbelievers.

Corruption, therefore, is a major factor in explaining the international community’s support of Ukraine, while telling both sides of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict to de-escalate.

This attitude is reminiscent of a time when police would show up to a domestic violence call and tell both husband and wife to calm down, even though one was the primary aggressor.

There is a myriad of other reasons involved in why the West won’t support Armenia, but there is one factor that doesn’t get enough attention:

Establishment politicians and their think-tank enablers hate Russia with a fiery passion.

In my last article, I briefly touched on the Hudson Institute’s Senior Fellow, Luke Coffey. I have now been blocked from viewing his accounts but reading through his Tweets reveals his policy preference is to bleed Russia dry in Ukraine and, since Armenia relies on Russia to protect them from Azerbaijan and Turkey, Armenia must be crushed too.

Supporting Aliyev while condemning Putin shows that think-tanks don’t actually care about whether a regime is authoritarian or not.

America’s post-Soviet policies towards Russia require its own in-depth investigation, which is beyond the capacity of this article to convey.

In the meantime, Christian lives are being lost to another jihad, because the West is too divided to care.