The Azerbaijani army has unilaterally launched a “counter-terrorist operation” on the territory of the unrecognized Armenian Republic of Artsakh.
The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan announced that local anti-terrorist actions would be carried out to restore the constitutional order.
The formal reason given was the explosion of two pieces of equipment by mines in the “gray zone”: the Azerbaijanis claim that civilians were killed.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry called Azerbaijan’s military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh “large-scale aggression”.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry calls on the UN Security Council and Russian peacekeepers to take measures to stop Azerbaijan’s hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The Azerbaijani side did not warn Russian peacekeepers in advance about today’s anti-terrorist operation in Nagorno-Karabakh” - Maria Zakharova
"The information was communicated to the Russian contingent a few minutes before the start of hostilities,” said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
The Armenian Apostolic Church called Azerbaijan’s actions in Nagorno-Karabakh genocide and called on international organizations to adequately respond to Baku.
The Azerbaijani army launched a major attack in the directions of Askeran, Agdere, Khojaly, and Khojavend with the support of armored units
The Azerbaijani army shells the outskirts of Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh with artillery. The air raid warning sounds in the city.
Artsakh Defense Forces: “The Azerbaijani Armed Forces are trying to advance into depth of Artsakh. The Defense Forces continue to resist Azerbaijan’s offensive along the entire line of contact.”
“Azerbaijan launched a ground operation to ethnically cleanse the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia did not give anyone a mandate to carry out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh” - Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan
I’m not going to rehash all of the myths and nonsense about the Ukraine conflict that you brought up, there is plenty of info out there if you care to un-indoctrinate yourself.
On the situation with Artsakh i will just say this: it is not Russia’s responsibility, it is Armenia’s. If Armenia does not ask for help then Russia cannot force it on them. Russia has no CSTO obligations toward Nagorno-Karabakh. Its treaty is with Armenia, and Armenia does not claim Karabakh as its own territory. Armenia explicitly recognizes Azeri sovereignty over N-K. Therefore as far as Russia and the rest of the world is concerned it is an internal Azerbaijan matter. Armenia has decided it does not want to get involved to protect its people, so why should Russia? You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
Russia has signed the trilateral agreement by which its peacekeepers should protect the civilian population and maintain the ceasefire. They are not even trying to fulfill that.
Armenian PM’s justification is that Azeris want a casus belli to attack Armenia proper and make it a game over for both Armenian states, as they are too outgunned by now. Emotionally yesterday and the day before I’d say that he and every officer who followed that order (all of them) should be fed to pigs, but now I think that maybe there is merit to this.
The “international community” has shown abundantly clear that no sovereign right of Armenia is going to be protected by any military action (think bombing Baku like Belgrade) or even sanctions (cause Azerbaijan is in general convenient for them, it also has that charming MO of casually bribing every politician they operate with ; it may not be easy to accept large bribes from somebody in a Western country while being an official of a Western country, but bribes from genocidal dictatorships are fine apparently).
In general until Armenians start trying to kill officials making such choices in their Western countries, nothing is going to change in this regard, which means that Armenia can’t even buy weapons, because in hard fact “the West” supports Azerbaijan and genocide and doesn’t want Armenians to be able to defend themselves.
In such a situation, however inhuman this would seem, Armenia’s government has to try and get people out by non-military means. Or at least try asking for an official green light for intervention from UNSC or whatever to get out the people it still can get out via military force. Otherwise it may even get sanctioned for trying.