Three years after the truce, Azerbaijan is again targeting Nagorno-Karabakh, launching a military operation against the Armenian enclave. Air raids on Yerevan army positions and besieged cities were thus also intensified. The disputed strip of land is recognized internationally as the territory of Azerbaijan but is occupied by some settlements of Armenian people (about 120 thousand people) who have self-proclaimed a republic with Stepanakert as its capital.
The Russians, with an interposition contingent of around 2000 soldiers, have guaranteed the truce over the past three years. Now with the war in Ukraine, Moscow's presence and attention has faded, thus rekindling the spiral of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan in an interview with Repubblica accused Baku of having blocked the Lachin corridor which is, in fact, the only access route to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia.
Armenia has therefore decided to ask for diplomatic intervention from Russia and the UN Security Council to end hostilities in the area, accusing Azerbaijan of having started an ethnic cleansing operation.
The Azerbaijani government, however, believes that the start of military operations is motivated by the need to fight terrorist cells.
Russia, USA, EU, France and Germany ask for the end of military operations by Azerbaijan while Turkey, in an official statement by Erdogan, expresses full support for Baku: “We support the steps taken in defense of its territorial integrity by Azerbaijan, with which we act together according to the motto “one nation, two states”.
Armenians and Azeris have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh for thirty years. Over 30.000 people died in the first war, fought between 1988 and 1994 against the backdrop of the collapse of the USSR. More than 6.500 lost their lives in the fighting in the autumn of 2020, when Azerbaijani troops conquered part of the region they had lost control of.
Azerbaijan today has a particular strategic importance because it has become the largest exporter of gas to Europe with an estimated 25 billion cubic meters per year (Italy benefits from this through the TAP gas pipeline). For this reason it has probably revitalized its ambitions in Nagorno-Karabakh thanks to its alleged impunity-
Azerbaijan is also an ally of Israel, constituting an advanced position against Iran considering the long border line with the Islamic Republic. Tel Aviv, in fact, supplies Baku with all the necessary armaments, including the deadly drones widely used against the Armenian air defense positions of the former Soviet Union era.
Meanwhile, a military base of the Russian peacekeeping forces was destroyed in Nagorno Karabakh. This was stated by the Russian Telegram channel “Rybar”. “According to the peacekeepers evacuating civilians from the active war zone, the bullets come from both sides, both from Azerbaijan and Armenia,” noted “Rybar”, adding that there were no casualties among the military
Russians.
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