It said around 200 protesters, gathered outside the base in the northern town of Gyumri, were demanding that Russian peacekeepers unblock the sole road - the Lachin Corridor - which links Armenia and the predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Since Dec. 12, people identifying themselves as environmental activists from Azerbaijan have partially blocked the road, letting only limited traffic through. Azerbaijan says their action does not amount to a full blockade, but ethnic Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh officials say food, medicine and fuel are running desperately short as a result.
The corridor, which allows supplies from Armenia to reach the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who control the mountainous region, has been policed by Russian peacekeepers since 2020.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but its inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenian and it broke away from Baku's control in a war in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating.
In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire, and peacekeepers deployed along the Lachin corridor, which became the only route into and out of Nagorno-Karabakh.
(Reporting by Marina Bobrova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
