Armenia denounces "large-scale aggression" for the purpose of "ethnic cleansing". On Tuesday, Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, Stepanakert, and other cities in the region were targeted by "intensive fire" by Azerbaijani forces, Armenian separatist authorities said. Baku "launched a large-scale military operation against the Republic of Artsakh (the name given by Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh, Editor's note)," they warned on Facebook.
Baku had earlier warned that it had launched "anti-terrorist operations" targeting Armenian forces, in response to the death of six people in the explosion of mines at the site of a tunnel under construction between two cities in Azerbaijani-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani security services accused a group of Armenian separatist "saboteurs" of laying the mines and committing an act of "terrorism".
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This Azerbaijani territory controlled by Armenian separatists has been disputed for decades between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. This military intervention comes three years after the start of the previous Karabakh war in September 2020, a conflict won at the time after six weeks by Azerbaijani forces.
Tensions flared up a few months ago after theyeased a notch on Monday with the arrival of humanitarian aid in the enclave, which has been under an Azerbaijani blockade for months that has caused severe shortages of food and medicine.
The "unconditional and total withdrawal" of Armenian forces
Baku said it had informed Russia and Turkey "in advance" of its operations, assuring that it was only targeting "legitimate military targets" and not civilian ones. "As part of these measures, the positions of the Armenian armed forces (...) are put out of harm's way with high-precision weapons on the front line and in depth," the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement. He also said that "humanitarian corridors" have been set up on the Lachin road to allow the evacuation of civilians.
Azerbaijani diplomacy warned that "the only way to achieve peace and stability in the region" was "the unconditional and total withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijan's Karabakh region and the dissolution of the so-called separatist regime."
For its part, Armenia has assured that it has no armed troops deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh, implying that only its separatist allies were there to face the Azerbaijani forces. They "are trying to advance in depth", they said on X (ex-Twitter), adding that the Armenian defense forces "continue to resist".
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has urgently convened his Security Council to address the crisis. "Azerbaijan has launched a ground operation aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Karabakh," he denounced in a televised statement on Tuesday, assuring instead that the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border was "stable" and that Armenia was "not engaged in armed actions".
International reactions
Russia, a regional power and guarantor of a 2020 ceasefire involving the deployment of Russian peacekeepers on the ground, called on both sides to "respect" the agreements in force for Nagorno-Karabakh and "avoid provocations," saying they were in contact with Baku.
Moreover, "the Russian side urgently calls for an end to the bloodshed (...) and a return to a peaceful settlement," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters. "All stages of a peaceful solution are set out in the agreements signed in 2020 and 2022," she added.
Azerbaijan must "immediately" cease its military operation, asked for his part the President of the European Council Charles Michel on X (ex-Twitter), "to allow a real dialogue between Baku and the Armenians of Karabakh". EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also "condemned" Azerbaijan's military offensive. The European Union has set up an observation mission on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan and acts as a mediator between the two countries.
In the early afternoon, Paris requested an "emergency" meeting of the UN Security Council. "No pretext can justify such unilateral action, which threatens thousands of civilians already affected by months of illegal blockade and goes against the efforts of the international community to reach a negotiated settlement," the French Foreign Ministry stressed, urging Baku "to immediately cease its offensive and return to respect for international law."