Yerevan
The Moscow Kinotheatre dominates one of Yerevan’s sunny central squares. Outside, a giant chess board has been laid out in the shade of the grand Soviet-era building, with local children competing against each other to lift pieces half their size. Now, though, it is dawning on many in the Armenian capital that their country is at the centre of another strategic tussle, and Russia no longer seems to be watching over them.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Azerbaijan began a massive artillery barrage, striking targets well inside Armenian territory. Explosions rocked the city of Goris, close to the mountainous border, but shells also fell near towns like Vardenis, just 60 miles from Yerevan. According to Armenian officials, 105 people have already died with dozens more, including civilians, suffering injuries. As of Wednesday, the cannons and mortars are still firing, and reports indicate Azerbaijan is moving land forces in to take ground.
Azerbaijan accuses its neighbour of firing first, killing dozens of its troops, and insists it is only hitting military installations. “The issue is about our sovereignty and territorial integrity. All responsibility for the current provocations lies with the political-military leadership of Armenia,” Layla Abdullayeva, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baku, tells UnHerd.
However, with satellite imagery appearing to show the tell-tale signs of wildfires triggered by shelling almost entirely on the Armenian side of the border, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, to insist on an “immediate halt to fighting.” By contrast, Blinken told Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, that there is a need for the “disengagement of military forces,” something Yerevan is already demanding.
The two former Soviet Republics have been locked in a bitter and often bloody dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh for more than three decades. Inside Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognised borders, a stretch of land the size of Lebanon has been governed by the Armenians who call it home since a brutal war that followed the fall of the USSR. Over 250,000 Azerbaijanis who lived alongside them were evicted, and regaining their lost land became an all-encompassing national mission.
Then, in 2020, well-armed Azerbaijani troops, supported by advanced drones shipped over by its ally Turkey, rolled over the fortified front lines, taking back swathes of territory they lost thirty years prior. Only a Moscow-backed ceasefire put an end to the offensive, leaving the local Armenians — and their unrecognised breakaway republic of Artsakh — confined to their capital, Stepanakert and a small number of surrounding villages. Russian peacekeepers were deployed to enforce the agreement.
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