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Russian arms trading with Azerbaijan were conducted in line with the agreements reached between the two states before the 2016 April war over Artsakh, Konstantin Kosachev, Chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Russian Council of the Federation, told reporters on Wednesday at the Armenian National Assembly. 

The Armenian reporters reminded the Russian official of the statement made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in China in 2017 over the U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine, hinting to a contradiction between the words and actions of the Russian leader.

“The delivery of weapons to a conflict zone doesn’t help peacekeeping efforts, but only worsens the situation,” said Putin, who has sold $5 billion weapons to Azerbaijan since 2011.

“Firstly, I want to stress that in such cases it is about conflicts in a heated phase, line in eastern Ukraine, which is seeing weapons use,” Kosachev said. “Fortunately, the Artsakh conflict is not at that phase. We all realize that the situation is volatile, and the events of April 2016 were yet another tragic proof of it.”

The Russian official states the agreements on Russian arms sales to Azerbaijan were reached before that, and now they are obliged to implement the deal under those documents.

Probably Mr Kosachev intentionally missed the fact that "before that" was preceded by many such cases of "before that", and Azerbaijan’s policy of aggression and extermination against Armenians started long before the establishment of the Artsakh Republic.