RF is weak. Why did Azerbaijan shoot at Armenia?

Yerevan and Baku have exchanged accusations of shelling and provocations. Experts believe that Azerbaijan is scouting the ground, seeing Russia’s weakness.

The Armenian Defense Ministry announced an intensive shelling on the border of Armenian settlements from Azerbaijan, as a result of which almost 50 soldiers were killed. The Azerbaijani authorities, in turn, accused Yerevan of “massive sabotage” and announced losses on both sides. The Armenian government has turned to Russia, CSTO member countries, the United States, France and the UN Security Council over the conflict. Correspondent.net telling the details.

Azerbaijan took new positions

On the evening of September 13, the Armenian Defense Ministry reported that the armed forces of Azerbaijan began intensive shelling in the direction of several border Armenian communities. Azerbaijani authorities accused Yerevan of “massive destruction” along the border in the direction of Dashkesan, Kalbajar and Lachin.

“On September 13, at 00.05, the units of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces opened heavy fire in the direction of the settlements of Goris, Sotk and Jermuk with artillery and large-caliber guns. The positions of the Armenian Armed Forces were stoned ,” the Armenian. said the military department.

Later, the Armenian Defense Ministry added that “a heavy firefight, which started as a result of a large-scale provocation by Azerbaijan, continues.” “The Armed Forces of Armenia are responding proportionately,” the agency said in a statement.

The ministry says Azerbaijan is using artillery, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles and large-caliber small arms, striking military and civilian infrastructure in the direction of the settlements of Vardenis, Sotk, Artanish, Ishkhanasar, Goris and Kapan.

In response, Azerbaijan pointed out that at night “sabotage groups of the Armed Forces of Armenia mined the areas and supply routes between the positions of the Azerbaijani army units.”

“As a result of urgent measures taken by our units to immediately prevent these actions, a battle took place,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said, adding that losses were recorded in personnel.

The Azerbaijani military is taking “necessary measures” to “silence the firing points of the Armenian armed forces and prevent the expansion of the scale of the military conflict,” Baku insisted. They called the allegations that Azerbaijan invaded Armenia “absurd”.

According to Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense, the Armenian side suffered losses in personnel and military equipment. After some time, Yerevan confirmed the losses – 49 servicemen.

As a result of the clashes, the Azerbaijani army “gave control over several important strategic positions and hills in the border zone, which were not demarcated,” Trend reported. Also, the Azerbaijani military took “under visual and fire control a number of strategic communications passing through the territory of Armenia.”

On the evening of September 13, the Armenian Defense Ministry announced a decrease in the intensity of fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, but tensions remain high in many areas.

Armenia raised half the world on its ears

Against the backdrop of the border conflict, Armenia turned to Russia, the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, as well as the UN Security Council for help. France, which has chaired the UN Security Council since September 1, has promised to consider the issue of escalation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Elysee Palace reported.

In addition, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan called the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and then the French President Emmanuel Macron and the United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Pashinyan also called the President of Iran.

The agreement between CSTO members, which also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, indicates that an attack on one member of the union means an attack on all. Yerevan also asked Moscow to revive the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the two countries.

The Kremlin reported that they will hold an online CSTO summit tonight, and on September 16, Putin will meet with the Azerbaijani leader on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Samarkand.

The United States intervened. The State Department’s chief adviser on the Caucasus, Philip Reeker, has arrived in Azerbaijan. He plans to discuss the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, local media wrote.

Washington announced three days ago that the US and the EU would act as mediators between Baku and Yerevan. The State Department plans to “ensure a secure, stable, democratic, prosperous and peaceful future in the South Caucasus region,” official statements said.

Turkey commented on the border escalation, supporting Azerbaijan. “Baku is not alone, Ankara is close,” said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. And the office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that peace between the parties to the conflict can be achieved “only on the basis of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.”

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BBC News correspondent Grigor Atanesyan calls the overnight increase unprecedented. According to Armenian authorities and journalists, not only border towns, but also the resort towns of Jermuk and Martuni on Lake Sevan were fired from artillery.

“It is important that this is not about Karabakh, the conflict zone where Russian peacekeepers are stationed. The conflict is taking place on the territory of the Republic of Armenia, both sides admit. Baku said they launched a military operation in response to the provocation. – according to their version, Armenian troops fell all last week,” the journalist noted.

His sources in Armenia assure that the Armenian army is not in a position to carry out provocations after a heavy defeat in the 2020 war, which demonstrated Azerbaijan’s military superiority.

Nikolai Silaev, a leading researcher at the Center for Caucasus Problems and Regional Security at MGIMO, said that Azerbaijan is closely following the war in Ukraine, and any Russian failures on the battlefield are accompanied by increased pressure on Armenia .

“It is more like an investigation, but what will happen if … At the same time, Azerbaijan continues from the fact that it considers strong pressure as the most reliable tool in a dialogue with Armenia, and shows what would happen if it was used,” he told Kommersant.

The expert does not think that Yerevan will make concessions. “But for now, Azerbaijan continues from the expectation that it will work. In its most general form, it interprets the tripartite statement of November 2020 as follows: the structures of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic must be liquidated ,” he says.

Two years of a new phase of conflict in Karabakh

The territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has been ongoing since the late 1980s. Mainly inhabited by ethnic Armenians, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, with the support of Armenia, announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR, and in September 1991 announced the creation of the Nagorno-Karabakh “republic”, but no country has recognized it.

In the war that broke out after that in 1992-1994, up to 25-30 thousand people died on both sides. Nagorno-Karabakh and some adjacent regions of Azerbaijan are under the de facto control of Armenia. As a result, millions of people, mostly ethnic Azerbaijanis, became refugees and forced migrants.

The negotiation process aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the conflict began in 1992 and has continued since then under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, led by Russia, France and the United States.

The conflict between Yerevan and Baku in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated in the summer of 2020. As a result of the war, which lasted until November 9, 6.5 thousand people died, and Azerbaijan returned the regions around Nagorno- Karabakh under its control and took the ancient and symbolically significant city of Shusha.

Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh

A day after Shusha was captured, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed a peace accord to end the war in the region.

Under the terms of the agreement, the territories where the troops were located at the time of signing the document were assigned to Armenia and Azerbaijan. A Russian “peacekeeping” mission was deployed along the contact line, but regional tensions remained, as no political dialogue was established between Baku and Yerevan after the end of the war.

Somewhere between the parties there are clashes. The first happened in December 2020, that is, one month after the signing of the agreement. As has been the case, the parties to the conflict interpret the main truce document in different ways.

Tensions on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan rose sharply last summer. Then there was a full-scale battle with the use of mortars and grenade launchers, as a result of which servicemen were killed. The parties quickly agreed to a truce, but the next day they accused each other of provocations.

Against the backdrop of Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine, the conflict escalated in March 2022. Then martial law was introduced in the “republic” of Nagorno-Karabakh. NSDC Secretary Aleksey Danilov, commenting on the events in Karabakh, said that the second front would help Ukraine.

The last one happened in August. Then fighting broke out in the region of the Lachin corridor – the road connecting Armenia and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh “republic”. The reason is Baku’s request to the Karabakh Armenians to leave this route and start using a new one, which Azerbaijan specifically laid out for communication with Armenia.

After the Armenians made it clear that they would not do so, the start of operation Retribution was announced in Baku, and partial mobilization was announced in Karabakh. At the same time, Armenia said that what was happening “raises questions” about Russian military activity in the region.

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