“In violation of the tripartite statement of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on November 9, 2020, the Azerbaijani armed forces entered the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh from March 24 to March 25,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The ministry also claims that Azerbaijani forces have carried out four attacks on Armenian soldiers in the vicinity of Furuh using Turkish-made Bayraktar-TB 2 drones.
Moscow also reports that a state of war has been declared in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has said that the Azerbaijani armed forces have violated the contact line in the area of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers and that Azerbaijani soldiers have occupied the village of Paruh in the Askeran district.
Armenian Prime Minister Nicholas Pashinyan has already said the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is tense and could become critical.
In September 2020, war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Armenian-populated disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing some 6,500 people.
The war lasted six weeks and ended on November 9, 2020, when Armenia and Azerbaijan, with Russian support, signed an agreement to cease fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is considered by many in Armenia to be a capitulation.
Under the agreement, Armenians lost part of Nagorno-Karabakh’s main territory, as well as all areas of the security buffer zone that had been under Armenian control since the 1990s. Among other things, the Kalbajar district was lost.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which was part of the Azerbaijani SSR during the Soviet era, has been a “de facto” independent Republic of Armenia since the early 1990s. Although Azerbaijan has not controlled Nagorno-Karabakh since the collapse of the USSR, it considers the Armenian region to be its territory.
Armenian-backed separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh said this week that Azerbaijani forces had opened fire on a village by destroying a car parked near the school.
Nagorno-Karabakh officials have said Russian peacekeepers in the region are aware of the shooting. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, for its part, denies that such shootings have taken place.
