Russia comments on the new crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh

The Azerbaijani army said, in a statement, that it launched an operation dubbed “Revenge” in response to “the illegal terrorist movements of the Armenian armed groups in the territory of Azerbaijan.”

She added that “intensive fire targeted on Wednesday morning the positions of the Azerbaijani army in the Lachin region, which is a buffer zone between the Armenian border and Nagorno-Karabakh.”

According to local reports, an Azerbaijani conscript was killed as a result of “heavy fire” targeting an Azerbaijani army position in Lachin, as well as the killing of two members of the Armenian forces and the wounding of 14 in an air raid of an Azerbaijani march.

For its part, Armenia called on the international community to stop Azerbaijan’s “aggressive” behavior in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

“Yerevan calls on the international community to take measures to stop Azerbaijan’s aggressive behavior and actions and activate mechanisms to achieve this,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Russia also commented on the new developments by saying that it is working to “stabilize” the situation there.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry announced: “In the Saribaba region, the Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire,” adding that “the leadership of the Russian peacekeeping force, together with representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia, is taking steps to achieve stability.”

The European Union called for an “immediate cessation” of hostilities between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“It is necessary to de-escalate, fully respect the ceasefire and return to the negotiating table to search for negotiated solutions,” said a spokesman for the European Union’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, in a statement.

After a first war in the 1990s, Armenia and Azerbaijan faced off in the fall of 2020 for control of this mountainous region, which split from Azerbaijan with the support of Yerevan.

The last war killed about 6,500 people and ended with a Russian-brokered truce.

As part of the armistice agreement, Armenia relinquished large areas of the territory it controlled, and Russia deployed a peacekeeping force of about 2,000 soldiers tasked with monitoring compliance with the armistice.

Under the mediation of the European Union, the two countries have been negotiating for months to reach a peace treaty.