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
USSR’s central government was on the Azeri side in the first war and its military did participate in ethnic cleansing, and not as some expulsion, but outright mass murders. After USSR ceased to exist, such entity as CIS military (shortly abolished afterwards) did participate on Azeri side, with large input into their 1992 offensive (very successful, they’ve took about half of NKAO, including all of Martakert).
What I mean is that war started before USSR ceased to exist. With first pogroms against Armenians, then fighting between police and volunteers on the Armenian side and police and some Soviet military on the Azeri side (there’s the notable exception of what Azeris call “the Black September”, when Soviet troops under general Lebed’ entered Baku and stopped the pogroms against Armenians, Azeris consider that a tragedy). Already during the conflict national militaries of Armenia, NK and Azerbaijan were created. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan frankly failed that process (Armenia proper’s little participation in the war involves some catastrophes due to bad organization, similar to Azerbaijan’s, though it did take Karvachar and protect its borders in general), while NK managed to do it sufficiently well, still it wasn’t such a clear Armenian victory, hence the ceasefire.
late 80s ussr was completely rotted out and made a lot of questionable decisions, you wont find any communists that defend its actions there.