The Azerbaijani army has unilaterally launched a "counter-terrorist operation" on the territory of the unrecognized Armenian Republic of Artsakh.
The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan announced that local anti-terrorist actions would be carried out to restore the constitutional order.
The formal reason given was the explosion of two pieces of equipment by mines in the “gray zone”: the Azerbaijanis claim that civilians were killed.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry called Azerbaijan’s military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh “large-scale aggression”.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry calls on the UN Security Council and Russian peacekeepers to take measures to stop Azerbaijan’s hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"The Azerbaijani side did not warn Russian peacekeepers in advance about today’s anti-terrorist operation in Nagorno-Karabakh" - Maria Zakharova
"The information was communicated to the Russian contingent a few minutes before the start of hostilities,” said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
The Armenian Apostolic Church called Azerbaijan’s actions in Nagorno-Karabakh genocide and called on international organizations to adequately respond to Baku.
The Azerbaijani army launched a major attack in the directions of Askeran, Agdere, Khojaly, and Khojavend with the support of armored units
The Azerbaijani army shells the outskirts of Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh with artillery. The air raid warning sounds in the city.
Artsakh Defense Forces: "The Azerbaijani Armed Forces are trying to advance into depth of Artsakh. The Defense Forces continue to resist Azerbaijan’s offensive along the entire line of contact."
"Azerbaijan launched a ground operation to ethnically cleanse the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia did not give anyone a mandate to carry out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh" - Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan
I'm sure we will get more news as the situation develops but all signs point to this being a very bad development. Hopefully the humanitarian catastrophe can be avoided or somewhat mitigated.
Taking a broader historic view at the situation i want to point out that this is a unique case of us getting a view of an alternate history scenario, namely we may see what would have happened in the situation with the Donbass had Russia not acted and intervened the way it did.
Kiev was preparing to launch just such an operation in late 2021/early 2022 with the aim of fully re-establishing control over the rebellious Donbass republics, and if successful of subsequently carrying out comprehensive ethnic cleansing. In both cases large armies sufficient to overrun the much weaker army of a breakaway region were amassed and the "anti-terrorism" justification was used.
The crucial difference lies in how the nation which understood itself as the protector of the breakaway ethnic group reacted: Russia pre-empted the Ukrainian attack on the Donbass by recognizing the independence of the two republics, then accepting the call for help received from these republics in defending themselves from the impending and ongoing attacks.
Armenia by contrast has refused to recognize the independence of Artsakh and as such has abandoned their fellow Armenians in that region to their fate. Because the Armenian government still recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, the hands of their historic ally Russia, the only ones who would have been capable of helping the militarily weak Armenia against the much stronger Azerbaijan are effectively tied. They can only do so much in their role as peacekeepers
Iran, though on very good terms with Armenia, also recognizes Azerbaijan's sovereignty over N-K and will not intervene unless the Armenian Zangezur corridor (a vital national interest for Iran) is threatened.
Sadly it seems the political leadership of Armenia have decided to sacrifice their compatriots in Artsakh, exploiting this tragedy as an opportunity to discredit Russia and justify pursuing closer military and geopolitical alignment with the US.
The irony is that the US, as well as their allies "Israel" and Turkey, are and will continue to be firmly on Azerbaijan's side, as it is much more geopolitically valuable to them than Armenia (for various reasons such as oil/gas, position vs. Iran, pan-Turkism, etc.).
Right now it is still possible for Azerbaijan (at the "request" of the US/EU) to decide to suddenly stop before incurring too much bad PR, judging that the goal of creating enough uncertainty over Russia's ability to keep the peace has been achieved. This would enable Yerevan to crank up the rhetoric persuading Armenians of the necessity of the geopolitical realignment.
The ethnic cleansing would still be achieved but over a longer period of time and with less overtly military means that are too visible to the international audience. Instead of evicting them all in one big military operation the pressure would slowly be ratchetted up until life is made unbearable enough for the people to simply leave. In this i'm sure Baku will receive lessons and training from their Israeli allies.
Do you actually believe this? Honestly? What part of preventing ethnic cleansing did trying and failing to take Kiev play? Digging ditches in radioactive forests? Being made look foolish at an airfield?
My friend your failing capitalist state you've chosen to support is now so weak it can't hold back Azerbaijan.
I'm not going to rehash all of the myths and nonsense about the Ukraine conflict that you brought up, there is plenty of info out there if you care to un-indoctrinate yourself.
On the situation with Artsakh i will just say this: it is not Russia's responsibility, it is Armenia's. If Armenia does not ask for help then Russia cannot force it on them. Russia has no CSTO obligations toward Nagorno-Karabakh. Its treaty is with Armenia, and Armenia does not claim Karabakh as its own territory. Armenia explicitly recognizes Azeri sovereignty over N-K. Therefore as far as Russia and the rest of the world is concerned it is an internal Azerbaijan matter. Armenia has decided it does not want to get involved to protect its people, so why should Russia? You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped.
What you want Russia to pre-emptively strike Azerbaijan as well? Jesus fuck you liberals are blood thirsty mongrels. Nice F-35 btw, that shitshow was funny asf. Now piss off
The baku regime persecutes the shia majority. So ideally i would like iran to protect its people and reintegrate the territory.
Liberals? F-35? Oh you think I'm American. Hi, I'm Irish, and an actual voting socialist, not an edgy teen who thinks Russia's petro-oligarchy has anything in common with the Soviet Union.
I don't want Russia to do anything, but it's just amusing to see the amount of coping happening here now that it's clear the vultures are starting to circle the Putin regime.
I do wonder who this 'edgy teen' that supports Russia is. Haven't seen any here.
And you must be new here, news flash we do not like russia either, but we don't parrot NATO propaganda in order to criticise russia. Talk smack on russia whenever you want, but if you do pull some pro-imperialist gibberish, then don't be surprised when your called out for it. And yes we do like to see putin's regime collapse in russia, and an ML soviet government in charge, but we won't support opportunists, or puppets like Navalny. And before you ask, we do not support ukraine.
Welcome to lemmygrad :).
You vote in bourgeois elections and that makes you a socialist? You seem confused.
If you are a US/ NATO ally, you can do anything you fucking want. War, invasions, human rights abuses, whatever it doesn't matter.
Just like the military dictatorship in Pakistan. People disappeared, jailed, murdered, elections postponed but because they are sending shells to Ukraine, all is forgiven.
That's liberals. At the first hint of self-interest being harmed they shit on all the concepts they write beautiful speeches about: democracy, sovereignty, peace, human rights, all of it. Only thing that matters to a liberal is their wallet and hegemony.
Just make sure to call them terrorists before you shoot them and you’re all good
As long as none of the victims is a white cishet capitalist man, who cares?
Fucking uhg, you cannot convince me that this isn't directed by NATO through Turkiye to pull attention from the Russians. Hate this. Also, post the Assad thing as a separate post!
to pull attention from the Russians
There's been several flare-ups around Karabakh since 2022. At least two of them seemed to coincide with developments in Ukraine that were detrimental to western narrative. Is it really tinfoil at this point?
I don't think it is tinfoil to expect global hegemon to act on a global scale.
Update: Yerevan has reportedly announced it will not go to war over Nagorno-Karabakh. Instead they seem to be more worried about internal dissent. Seems they would rather use their forces to crush any possible internal uprising in Armenia triggered by popular outrage over this betrayal.
The betrayal was entirely telegraphed and pretty much exactly what is happening now was predicted by most serious observers of the conflict in this region.
Seems they would rather use their forces to crush any possible internal uprising in Armenia triggered by popular outrage
Whaaat who could have possibly predicted such an outcome from a West-backed government that came to power after a colour revolution?! No way!
Newest update: It appears Artsakh has capitulated.
The consequences of this unconditional surrender for the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh are already looking to become very dire.
Meanwhile despite the announcement of the ceasefire Azerbaijan continues to attack several surrounded localities. Some of these may choose to fight to the end rather than surrender.
Oh boy here we go again
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy for all of mankind
USSR's central government was on the Azeri side in the first war and its military did participate in ethnic cleansing, and not as some expulsion, but outright mass murders. After USSR ceased to exist, such entity as CIS military (shortly abolished afterwards) did participate on Azeri side, with large input into their 1992 offensive (very successful, they've took about half of NKAO, including all of Martakert).
What I mean is that war started before USSR ceased to exist. With first pogroms against Armenians, then fighting between police and volunteers on the Armenian side and police and some Soviet military on the Azeri side (there's the notable exception of what Azeris call "the Black September", when Soviet troops under general Lebed' entered Baku and stopped the pogroms against Armenians, Azeris consider that a tragedy). Already during the conflict national militaries of Armenia, NK and Azerbaijan were created. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan frankly failed that process (Armenia proper's little participation in the war involves some catastrophes due to bad organization, similar to Azerbaijan's, though it did take Karvachar and protect its borders in general), while NK managed to do it sufficiently well, still it wasn't such a clear Armenian victory, hence the ceasefire.
late 80s ussr was completely rotted out and made a lot of questionable decisions, you wont find any communists that defend its actions there.
wait for it
