Azerbaijan and Armenia have now spent more than two weeks at war, with casualties mounting on both sides. On the morning of Sept. 27, Azerbaijan launched an offensive across the line of contact held by the Armenian military and local forces belonging to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh (sometimes referred to as the self-declared Republic of Artsakh). The fighting is the worst it has been since the Karabakh War of 1992 to 1994, encompassing the entire line of contact, with artillery, missile, and drone strikes deep past Armenian lines. This war features modern weaponry, representing a large-scale conventional conflict between these two states which will undoubtedly change the long-standing status quo. Turkey is backing Azerbaijan, seeking to leverage this conflict for foreign policy gains. Russia’s efforts to balance relations with all parties, while supporting Armenia, once kept the conflict frozen, but is no longer viable.
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