Last weekend was marked by a new round of military escalation between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
On December 12, Azerbaijan attacked the villages of Khtsaberd and Khin Taher, which were in the hands of Armenian militia units. After a series of clashes with the Armenians, they established control of Khtsaberd and deployed in the vicinity of Khin Taher. On December 13, Armenia claimed that Azerbaijani forces attacked the villages of Hin Shen and Mets Shen. However, this attack was repelled.
All these villages are located in the de-facto encirclement area by Azerbaijani troops and Armenian units located there are ‘volunteer battalions’ and ‘local militias’ that have refused to withdraw from the encirclement following the November 10 agreement. Their shady status became the source of current tensions in the region.
Expectedly, Azerbaijan and Armenia accused each other of violating the ceasefire regime. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and the State Security Service declared that Azerbaijani forces have carried out a “forced anti-terrorist operation” in the vicinity of the town of Hadrut. According to Baku, several Armenian units remained in the forest area and “did not leave the territory, but, to the contrary, set up combat positions and carried out several acts of sabotage against the Azerbaijani military and civilians.” These attacks resulted in the killing of four soldiers, and injuring two soldiers and a civilian. The President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev promised to crush the Armenians with “an iron fist” in the event of a further escalation.
In its own turn, the Armenian side declared that Azerbaijan just blatantly violated the ceasefire intentionally attacking positions of the Armenian forces. The Armenian Defense Ministry said that 6 Armenian fighters were injured.
The deployment of forces of the Russian peacekeeping mission put an end to the tensions and as of December 14, the Russian military expanded its presence to the south of the Lachin corridor. This move was aimed at preventing further clashes there.
The last days demonstrated that despite the ceasefire regime established in the area the region still remains a de-facto powder keg that can still explode. The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides still have to conduct the demarcation of the state border separating Armenian sovereign territory and the Karabakh districts transferred to Baku. These developments will also likely be accompanied by various provocations and could lead to open clashes.
South Front reports:
“The President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev promised to crush the Armenians with “an iron fist” in the event of a further escalation.”
Operation Iron Fist was the code name given by the Azeri military for the 2020 war.
Why does Aliyev bring up Iron Fist again? Shouldn’t the name of the military operation change after the truce & peace agreement ?
(E.g. Operation Iron Shield ?)
Listening to the bellicose rhetoric makes me wonder if this war is truly over…
I thought Aliyev had sense – but he has embraced all the bellicose rhetoric like Erdogan.
He forgets that he fought little Armenia a country of 2 million – with the help of Turkey (NATO ) and paid jihadis.
That is nothing to be proud of but I suppose a “win is a win”.
Erdogan will extract his price.
Will Azerbaijan embrace all the neo- ottomanism? It seems so and there goes Azerbaijan’s independence.
Armenia need to sort out there political situation and rebuild as best they can.
So whoever fired first….neither party referred to the peacekeepers for resolution before taking action. Is referal for adjudication to reduce conflict within the agreement procedures?
Just as Turkey and Azerbaijan did not refer their initial “concerns” re N-K situation back to the OSCE as should have happened….but continued to plan and stock up arms etc and decided to go all in.
And Russia will end up getting blamed by Azerbaijanistan for preventing a total victory and by Armenistan for not fighting for it. Either way Russia gets blamed.
This is why I repeatedly said that Russia should have stopped the war from starting at all. Once it started Russia should have let it play out to its conclusion.
Here we go with the Blame Russia!!
#Russia should do this
#Russia should do that
Both countries are independent and have agency – they choose their own way
Soviet Union is OVER
Why is responsibility for each countries foolishness assigned to Russia?
Armenia can blame Russia – but has nowhere to go.
Armenia for the past two years adopted an anti Russian doctrine
Azerbaijan can blame Russia – and start a war with its new friends Turkey and the silent partner Israel but what would the consequences be?
Azerbaijan can choose the anti Russian path – many of its citizens live in Russia – they can leave or start to cause social problems – either way their choice will have consequences
Agreed, its seems like we get these ranters that think Russia should dig these ungrateful Soviet republics from whatever grave they dig themselves in.
beheading old non combatant men seems to be spreading like a certain two nations involved planned. turkey and israel showed their hands in syria with Isis. now we are meant to believe exporting moderate head chopping democracy fighters was going to bring anything but war crimes. questions are is russia in on all this? are we meant to believe russia is just reacting not driving whats happening here? does turkish and israeli plans extend to just encircle iran as a quasi nato proxy. ? or to open up the Russian belly to a isis 2.0. after all the show must go on.
Russia is definitely not driving this conflict. But they clearly have some agreement with Turkey and the Zionist regime.
Russia is under tremendous pressure by the West. Nowhere near the “maximum pressure” being applied to Iran, but still enough to put Russia in a difficult position.
If Russia does not cooperate with Zionist designs in the Caucasus and elsewhere, the West will apply more pressure.
Russia cannot survive the kind of sanctions that Iran is under. Meanwhile, all of Eastern Europe is being turned against Russia, and now the Caucasus too.
Russia should not have allowed the NK conflict. But obviously they couldn’t stop it because of Zionist carrot and stick tactics. I would guess something along the lines of: cooperate and we give you a Turkish gas pipeline, don’t cooperate and we give you more sanctions.
Iran always seems to always choose more sanctions when confronted with such decisions, but the Iranians operate on a different level where misery equals virtue. Russia is pragmatic and rational, so they go straight for the carrot.
Jamshedpur
Do tell of this impending pressure that Russia cannot withstand.
What will Russians do if they are cut off from international trade and banking? Starve? Or will they spontaneously become self-sufficient?
Russia imports over 200 billion dollars worth of crap a year. Clearly they don’t do this just for the hell of it. And they export double that. All of that can be taken away, and it will be, when global Zionism finally deems it time to unleash Russian fury on the West.
Russia will eventually find itself surrounded by NATO puppets, and under life threatening sanctions, and so they will be led to war.
Russia has had receding sanctions since 2014, and its still standing, instead of going of the handle which you seem to do, why not wait as to what’s going to happen. If the Azeris along with the Turks are stupid enough to march to Yerevan, then you will get the direct Russian intervention you want. If that is so, then I hope Iran is prepared to join or ask Russia if it can assist militarily in fighting against Turkey and Azerbaijan, if it comes to that.
Where did I say Russia should “intervene directly” ie. go to war?
My whole premise is based on the fact that Russia could have averted this whole thing because Turkey and Azerbaijan won’t start a war with Russia.
Armenia is already lost, as is Azerbaijan. They are hopeless Zionist puppets now.
And NATO now has a straight path from Turkey to the Caspian, which makes Armenia irrelevant.
It is too late for Russia to come to Armenia’s aid now, or if Yerevan is attacked. NATO already achieved its objective.
As everybody knows Turkey got some sanctions as a gift from US for purchasing S-400 after National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 that is written in the US law.
Erdogan in a press. said today ” In fact Turkey expects the EU not to sanction it, but rather realize its promise of a full membership that it has not done for years. From our NATO ally US, we expect support in our battle against terrorist organizations and force that have plans for our region, not sanctions. We are never a country that chases after conflict or tensions with its neighbors or any other. We are fighting for the prosperity of our entire region and the world”
I am a little bit disappointed by people here in this blog because you give another picture of Mr. President here. He seems to be a peace keeping guy caring about neighbors by giving this press.
I searched fast in that National Defense Authorization Act after Turkey, Iran, China and Russia. You can seen down here how many times these countrys are mentioned.
Russia : 207 times
China : 191 times
Iran : 35 times
Turkey: 16
Do the people that vote for that NDAA realy read that 4500 pages of crap even tough those pages are written in big stile like for children?
This blog does indeed give another picture about Erdogan than that which you have been exposed to. The Blog talks about realities. Erdogan is a good public speaker but just as prone to lying and living in a delusional world just as all other Western politicians.
You simply need to compare more carefully, what he says with what is said about him…
That was a sarcasm my friend:)
LOL indeed good sarcasm