World News – FI – Combating flares between Azerbaijan and Armenia

Governments of both countries have reported action with tanks, military helicopters and artillery in rapid escalation of protracted conflict

MOSCOW – Reportedly heavy fighting broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Sunday and quickly escalated, with both sides claiming action with artillery, helicopter and tanks alongside a disputed border

Military action has focused on the breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region in northern Turkey and Iran where ethnic tensions and historical grievances have ignited conflict for decades

Sunday’s fighting, however, was reportedly more violent than the typical periodic border skirmishes, and both governments used military language describing the events as war Before Sunday, the last major escalation was in 2016 Each side accused the other of using artillery against civilians

« The enemy has launched an attack » against the Karabakh region, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a Facebook post

Mr. Pashinyan said the army in the Karabkah region, an ethnic Armenian enclave that claims to be an independent state but is mostly unrecognized, repelled the attack

But Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry then released a statement saying it launched a « counterattack » with tanks, helicopters and rocket artillery

In a statement released by Russian news agencies, Azerbaijan said the military operation destroyed “troops, military objects and equipment of the Armenian armed forces” near the border and deeper within the border. interior of the country He said he destroyed 12 short-range anti-aircraft installations in Armenia

The Armenian defense ministry said its forces destroyed three tanks and shot down two helicopters, Reuters reported

In previous outbreaks, both sides have exaggerated their successes and the scale of their enemies’ violations of the ceasefire agreements, although the potential for a larger war has always been clear. The Karabakh region maintains a system for calling almost all of its male population as minutemen, and this mobilization was announced on Sunday morning

The fighting in and around the Karabakh region, which Armenia calls Artsakh, was among the most vicious of the first post-Soviet conflicts A ceasefire was declared in 1994, but violence often exploded since

Moscow sells arms to both parties and has also negotiated ceasefire agreements Russia has a military base in Armenia The Armenian diaspora in France and the United States has helped the Karabakh region, notably by funding the construction of a strategic access road to the mountains

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