Another Battle Brews in Europe

As the war in Ukraine rages, a second conflict is heating up between Russian ally Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan

- TOM O'CONNOR

A SHORT-LIVED PEACE

Azeri service members carry a giant flag in a procession last November marking the one-year anniversary of an end to military conflict with Armenia. Lately, though, tensions between the two countries have been heating up again.

AS THE WAR IN UKRAINE ENTERS ITS SECOND month, Russian ally Armenia worries about a new front erupting on its own border with rival Azerbaijan as unrest builds between the South Caucasus neighbors.

Like Russia and Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan are two post-Soviet nations with a long history of deadly territorial disputes. Their most recent war erupted in September 2020 in the form of a bloody 44-day conflict focused on the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where ethnic Armenians established a separatist state called the Artsakh Republic three decades ago on land recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan.

The latest all-out bout of hostilities in the century-long feud over this territory largely ended with an agreement that allowed Russian peacekeeping forces to enter the battlefield. But as Moscow focuses on what it has deemed its "special military operation” against Ukraine, reports are emerging of new conflict in Europe's southern boundary with Asia.

“Azeri forces are attacking Armenian soldiers in Artsakh at the moment while I'm speaking,” Hayk Mamijanyan, a deputy of the Armenian parliament told Newsweek in late March.

Mamijanyan calls the recent attacks a “clear violation" of a ceasefire deal signed between the two sides on November 9, 2020. Armenians were “not really happy” with the agreement, he says, but “even that treaty is now violated.”