Armenia said at least 49 of its soldiers were killed. Azerbaijan said it lost 50. The fighting broke out minutes after midnight with Azerbaijani forces unleashing a barrage of artillery and drone strikes on several parts of Armenian territory, according to Armenia’s defense ministry. He said the shelling became less intense during the day, but Azerbaijani troops were trying to advance into Armenian territory. Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said it was responding to a “wide-scale provocation” from Armenia late Monday and early Tuesday. It said that Armenian troops laid mines and fired on Azerbaijani military positions. This image taken from a YouTube video released by the Armenian Defense Ministry on Tuesday shows Azerbaijani soldiers crossing the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and approaching Armenian positions. (Armenian Ministry of Defense via AP) The two countries have been locked in a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of Armenian-backed forces since a separatist war there ended in 1994. Azerbaijan reclaimed large swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in 2020 that killed more than 6,600 people and ended with a Russian-brokered peace deal. Moscow, which has deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal, has tried to maintain friendly ties with both former Soviet nations. The international community urged calm on both sides. Moscow has performed a delicate balancing act, maintaining strong economic and security ties with Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, while also developing close cooperation with oil-rich Azerbaijan. The Russian Foreign Ministry urged both sides on Tuesday to “refrain from further escalation and exercise restraint.”
“Back to trying to build a peace”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called Russian President Vladimir Putin and later also had visits with French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Charles Michel and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bairamov. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with both Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The U.S. has a special envoy to the region, Blinken said, “and I hope we can take it from the conflict back to the negotiating table and back to trying to build peace.” Speaking in parliament early Tuesday, Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of taking an intransigent stance in recent talks brokered by the European Union in Brussels. Armenia said Azerbaijan’s shelling on Tuesday damaged civilian infrastructure and injured an unspecified number of people. On Facebook, Aliyev expressed his condolences “to the families and relatives of our soldiers who lost their lives on September 13 while preventing large-scale provocations committed by the Armenian armed forces towards the Kalbajar, Lachin, Dashkasan and Zangilan regions of Azerbaijan ». Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, also blamed the violence on Armenia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his support for Aliyev and said in a statement that Turkey and Azerbaijan are “brothers… in all matters”. People supporting Armenia protest against the military conflict with Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in Brussels on October 7, 2020. (Yves Herman/Reuters) The governor of Gegharkunik province, one of the areas bombed by Azerbaijan, said there was a 40-minute lull in the fighting, apparently reflecting Moscow’s attempt to negotiate a truce before it resumed later. The governor, Karen Sargsyan, said four Armenian soldiers in his district were killed and 43 others were wounded in the shelling. Armenia’s government has said it will formally ask Russia for help under a friendship treaty between the countries, and will also appeal to the United Nations and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a security alliance of former Soviet nations dominated by Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Armenia’s request, but said during a conference call with reporters that Putin was “making every effort to help de-escalate tensions.”
