Armenian media reported today (Wednesday) on a series of Azeri attempts to occupy the town of Jermuk, which is in the sovereign territory of Armenia, after several days of heavy bombing and shelling of the town and its surroundings.
If the reports are correct, this is the first invasion of Azeri military forces into the internationally recognized sovereign territory of Armenia, as opposed to the territories of the disputed Nagorno Karabach region, since the 1990s.
In response to the civilian action, the President of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, informed the local parliament that he had activated the fourth article of the Common Security Treaty Organization, which includes countries such as Russia, Uzbekistan and Belarus, and called on them to intervene militarily.
Pashinyan claimed that 105 Azeri fighters and civilians have been killed since the clashes began and that much damage has been caused to infrastructure in the fighting areas.
Videos published by the Azeri Ministry of Defense showed the impact of UAVs, including a suicide UAV of the Israeli-made "Harup" model, on the positions of the Armenian army.
The funeral of an Azeri soldier who was killed in the battles in Armenia, photo: AFP
Several well-publicized funerals of fighters who were killed fighting against the Armenians were also held in Azerbaijan, but the Azeri Ministry of Defense did not publish data on the dead or injured in the clashes.
Baku denied the reports that they had launched a ground attack into the territory of Armenia and called for an immediate ceasefire.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began when both were republics in the USSR and centered on the dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The region, which is populated mostly by Armenians, was part of the Azerbaijani Republic, but in September 1991 it withdrew from Azerbaijan and declared an independent republic. During the war that took place In the early 1990s, nearly 30,000 people were killed in the separatist region, and it came under the de facto control of Armenia. However, in September 2020, Azerbaijan, which has invested over the years in advanced and Western military equipment (including Israeli), succeeded in returning parts of Nagorno-Karabakh to its control, including the city Historical Shusha Immediately after the fall of Shusha, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement, which ratified the Azeri occupations, while Russia, which mediated between the parties, brought a peacekeeping force into the area along the contact line.
Russia is Armenia's de jure ally, but Turkey's ally Azerbaijan also maintains close ties.
It seems that now Russia is no longer able to guarantee the ceasefire between the parties, and according to some commentators, Azerbaijan sought to take advantage of its weakness due to the failure in Ukraine, and to achieve further achievements on the ground.
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