Fighting breaks out on Armenian border

Azerbaijani forces used artillery and drone strikes to attack Armenian troops shortly after midnight Tuesday, according to the Armenian Defense Ministry. Armenia claimed it has lost 49 troops, and Azerbaijan claimed it lost 50. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the death toll could rise. The Armenian Defense Ministry said fighting continued throughout the day as Azerbaijani forces advanced into the territory, despite attempts by Russia to broker a cease-fire.

Why did the attack happen? Azerbaijani forces said they were responding to a large-scale provocation by Armenia. The two countries are locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region in a mountainous area claimed by Azerbaijan. However, it has been controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since 1994. Armenian Christians mostly populate the region. Azerbaijan took back part of the region in 2020 in a war that killed 6,600 people before Russia brokered a cease-fire between the two countries.

Dig deeper: Read Onize Ohikere’s report from the WORLD archives about how Armenian Christians responded during that 2020 war between the two countries.