 German politician. West will support Azerbaijan's position. The West cannot exert real pressure on Baku for the situation in Lachnin Road. European influence is rather small. German politician scientist Alexander Ra said, according to Ra, until 2022 Armenia had a lot of support in the West where they argued a lot about what really dominates in international law. The inviolability of the sovereign territory of the state or the principle of self-determination of peoples. There were big disputes but Kosovo gained independence and this played into the hands of Armenia which could say that in Karabakh it was protecting its national minority from Azerbaijan so part of the world community was on the side of Armenia. The situation changed after the start of the war in Ukraine and the conflicts that started before that. The entire West has firmly taken the position that the issue of self-determination of national minorities has receded into the background and Armenia lost serious support in this regard as international law began to be interpreted differently in the West. Therefore the West will support the positions of Azerbaijan the German political scientist emphasized. Ra believes that squeezing Russia out of the South Caucasus is currently an impossible task for the European Union. He stressed that all Western resources are now thrown into Ukraine. In this situation the South Caucasus is a secondary direction for the EU the German political scientist noted. The European Union has no political will power and interest in the South Caucasus except for the desire to create a symbolic mission which is also not bad the experts stressed. Ra added that the region is extremely explosive and Europe is not interested in a new war in the South Caucasus. More than 50 days has passed since Azerbaijan eco activists began protesting along the section of the Lachin Road that passes close to the Azerbaijani city of Shusha. The protesters demanded access to the mineral deposits that are being illegally exploited in the part of Karabakh that is temporarily under the control of the Russian peacekeeping mission. A mid these protests in late December 2022 Switzerland based mining company Bayes Metals which was involved in the extraction of ore and gold in the region announced a temporary shutdown without providing detailed estimates regarding the resumption of its activities.