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Two tanks crawl across the steppe, soldiers walk behind them. Then a rocket hits, an explosion can be seen and one of the tanks disappears in a cloud of smoke. The video showing Azerbaijani troops under fire was released yesterday by the Armenian Defense Ministry.
The conflict between the Caucasian states of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which has not been resolved for decades, threatens to become open war again. Armenia announced yesterday the general mobilization. All recruits had to report to their military commissions.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reported in a television speech about the fighting and the dead Azerbaijani soldiers and civilians. “Your blood does not go unpunished.”
Propagandistically, the war is in full swing. Armenian military spokesmen announced the downing of two enemy helicopters, three tanks and 14 drones. The opposing side only admitted the loss of one helicopter, in turn reported the capture of six villages and the destruction of 12 Armenian anti-aircraft rocket launchers.
Karabakh occupied by Armenia
There had already been border clashes in July. Now the fighting is back on Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1988 a bloody guerrilla war broke out in the predominantly Armenian district of the then Azerbaijan Soviet Republic. After the slaughter on both sides, the Armenian Christians also drove out the Muslim civilian population as well as the Azerbaijani fighters. Since then, Baku has been demanding the return of Nagorno-Karabakh and a land corridor.
Several rounds of negotiations, mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Moscow, failed.
For an open war, Azerbaijan would have had to gather two thirds of its armed forces at the border, writes the Moscow newspaper “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, citing military experts. “There is nothing to do with that.” But Azerbaijan, which has been enriched by oil and gas exports, has been arming itself for decades. According to the “Global Firepower” portal, its military budget is 2,800 million dollars, and Armenia is not even half. The Azerbaijani army has 126,000 soldiers and 570 tanks, the neighbor has 45,000 men and 110 tanks.
According to Global Firepower, Armenia has practically no fighter jets, but belongs to the Russian-led CSTO alliance. Moscow also has a military base in the city of Gyumri, where MiG planes are also stationed. “If there is war,” says Moscow political scientist Ashdar Kurtov, “Russia will find it difficult to stay out of it.” A CSTO spokesman called yesterday for a peaceful solution.
Article of
Stefan scholl
