- Fighting breaks out in a region under the control of Russian peacekeepers
- Azerbaijan and Armenia will fight a war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
(Infosette News) At least three soldiers were killed in clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in disputed territory overseen by Russian peacekeepers as part of a true agreement that halted a 2020 war.
Two Armenian soldiers were killed and 14 were injured when Azerbaijani troops used grenade launchers and attack drones, according to the defense army of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on Wednesday. According to the Defense Ministry in Baku, one Azerbaijani soldier was killed when units came under heavy fire from “illegal Armenian armed formations.”
The fighting took place in the Lachin corridor, which connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia via Azerbaijan and is patrolled by Russian peacekeepers, as well as in the enclave’s northeast. As many as 2,000 Russian troops were sent to the area as part of President Vladimir Putin’s agreement to end the 44-day war that killed thousands in late 2020.
After the clashes on Wednesday, Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said Russian peacekeepers had helped to stabilize the situation. Nonetheless, the leader of the breakaway region announced a partial mobilization.
During the war, Azerbaijan took control of a portion of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is mostly populated by Armenians but is internationally recognized as part of its territory, and reclaimed seven surrounding districts that it had lost in an early 1990s conflict.
Tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia are rising as Russia is distracted by the war.
While they have agreed to work on defining their state borders and opening transport routes between their countries, Armenia and Azerbaijan have yet to reach a peace agreement to end the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which began more than three decades ago as the Soviet Union was collapsing. Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers met for the first time in Georgia last month.
