On July 12, Armenian and Azerbaijani forces exchanged fire along the state border in the Tovuz region of Azerbaijan and Armenia’s Tavush province, resulting in several days of intense cross-border clashes involving heavy artillery exchanges (Mod.gov.az, July 12). The two countries have been under a... MORE

Many in Baku, Yerevan, Moscow and the West have expressed surprise at the Russian government’s efforts to remain neutral in the face of new fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But in fact, Russian military commentator Aleksandr Staver says, Moscow has always had good reasons to... MORE

On July 10, Armenia’s Security Council approved a new National Security Strategy. It is considerably longer than the previous version of this document, adopted in 2007 (Armenia’s first strategy planning document since the country regained its independence in 1991), and the updated strategy appears more... MORE

On July 17, Russia began massive “snap combat readiness” exercises of troops from the Western and Southern military districts, the Airborne Forces (Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska—VDV) and marines of the North and Pacific fleets. According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the maneuvers (which concluded on July 22)... MORE

On June 29, the Georgian parliament finally approved the Western-mediated electoral reform amendment to the Constitution, with 117 deputies voting in favor and 3 opposed. The passage of the amendment was made possible thanks to the votes of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) majority and... MORE

Following the outbreak of deadly Armenian-Azerbaijani border clashes on July 12 (see EDM, July 14, 16, 20 [1][2]), Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom reported that its local natural gas pipelines in Armenia were damaged, due to the shelling (TASS, RBC, July 14). Furthermore, the Moscow-led... MORE

Four days ago (July 17), Vagif Dargyakhly, the press spokesperson for the Azerbaijani defense ministry, said that if Armenia escalated its conflict with Azerbaijan further, Baku could consider targeting the Armenian nuclear power plant (NPP) at Metsamor. Azerbaijani officials have since retreated from his words... MORE

On July 12, the Azerbaijani border region of Tovuz and the Tavush region on the Armenian side became the new epicenter of clashes between the armed forces of the two states, with the involvement of heavy artillery and unmanned aerial drones (BBC News–Azerbaijani service, July... MORE

The bloodiest of all ongoing post-Soviet conflicts, that between Armenia and Azerbaijan, intensified again on July 12. Over three days, the fighting claimed the lives of 16 people, including an Azerbaijani civilian, making it the deadliest escalation since the April 2016 “Four-Day War” (Eurasian Times,... MORE

Armenian and Azerbaijani military forces are engaged in their most serious armed confrontation since the so-called Four-Day War of April 2016, when hundreds of soldiers on both sides were reportedly killed and wounded along the Line of Contact, which marks the frontier of Azerbaijan’s occupied... MORE