"Military Sub-plane" author: Big Ivan
On the afternoon of September 19, local time, the long-prepared Azerbaijani army suddenly launched a large-scale attack on the "Ertsakh Republic" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region from several directions.
Allegedly, the Azerbaijani army used large-caliber artillery and rocket artillery to storm the administrative center of the "Republic of Eltsakh" Stepanakert. After that, the Azerbaijani army began to gradually develop fire preparations, and began to systematically and step by step remove the artillery positions and ground guidance positions of the army of the "Republic of Ertsakh" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. To this end, the Afghan army dispatched TB-2 reconnaissance and combat integrated UAVs, "Harpo" suicide patrol missiles, and Israeli-made "Lora" short-range ballistic missiles, which can confirm that some of the technical equipment of the "Republic of Eltsak" army has been annihilated.
Photos published by the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan show the destruction of targets located in the "Republic of Eltsakh" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region
Subsequently, on the evening of September 19, local time, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense issued a statement announcing that in view of the humanitarian situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Azerbaijani army was forced to carry out an "anti-terrorist operation" in the area - completely disarming the army of the "Republic of Ertsakh" and forcing the army to surrender in order to fully restore local order and carry out humanitarian relief. At the same time, the Afghan Ministry of Defense also announced that the first phase of the "anti-terrorist operation" has been basically achieved, and the military operation capability of the "Eltsakh Republic" has been suppressed. For this reason, the Afghan army seemed to have a ground attack from the early morning of the 20th local time.
At present, the direction of ground attack confirmed according to OSINT (Open Source Cyber Intelligence) roughly includes two main axes:
The first is the northern axis, the Azerbaijani army is dispatched from the Kerbadya and Agdam regions respectively, along the road of the Tertel River, and the campaign of the two forces is aimed at capturing the Sarsang reservoir in the north of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in order to completely separate the northern region of the "Republic of Ertsakh from the south";
The second is the western axis, where the Azerbaijani army does not seem to have chosen to attack head-on from Susha to Stepanakert, or the front of this frontal offensive has not yet been launched, but has chosen a knife in the back. From both sides of the Lachin corridor, which had previously been controlled by the Azerbaijani army, to the M12 highway of the Lachin corridor, the campaign was intended to cut off the communication link between Armenia mainland and Stepanakert.
Armenia's reaction
As of the time of writing (early morning of the 20th Azerbaijani time), it is temporarily unclear what the results of Azerbaijan's round of fire preparations are, nor whether the ground offensive of the Azerbaijani army indicated by osint (open source network intelligence) is true, but the reaction of the Armenian side is intriguing:
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense released a video claiming to be a picture of the positions of the Armenian army under attack
After the outbreak of the conflict, the Armenian Ministry of Defense immediately posted a clarification on social media, saying that the "Republic of Ertsakh" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region "has no Armenian soldiers", and this "republic" has "no dime a dozen" relationship with the Armenian side; Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also said that Armenia recognizes that the Nagorno-Karabakh region belongs to Azerbaijan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan are not in a state of conflict, but he secretly said that it is precisely because of the existence of Russia that the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has suddenly changed.
In response to Pashinyan's statements, there was a wave of opposition in Armenia, and some veterans began to gather at the gate of the Prime Minister's Office in the capital Yerevan to ask for an explanation, to which Pashinyan did not hesitate to send riot police to disperse all the troublemakers.
A crowd of protesters at the entrance of the Armenian Prime Minister's Office
All in all, the current situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region is very inexplicable, the Azerbaijani army there is fighting like a fire, the Armenian army here is still moving, and it is busy cleaning up its relations with the "Republic of Ertsak". In fact, everyone knows that the relationship between Armenia and the "Republic of Ertsakh" is described in one sentence, "lice on the bald head are clearly present."
It is clear that a new round of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has broken out in full force, and it is not difficult to understand the causes of the conflict, the actions of the Azerbaijani army, and even the seemingly inexplicable reaction of Armenia.
The causes of the outbreak of conflict
The causes of conflict, which we have said many times before, are two factors:
One is the last Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which ended on November 10, 2020, and was an "imperfect" conflict for Azerbaijan. Although after more than forty days of conflict, the Azerbaijani army managed to seize most of the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, captured the overarching territory of Susha, the territory of Stepanakert, and attacked the city of Stepanakert, the Azerbaijani army also exhausted most of its strength in the offensive. Then the military police forces of the Southern Military District of the Russian army intervened, separating the armies of Afghanistan and Asia, and single-handedly led the subsequent ceasefire agreement.
Although the ceasefire agreement allocated all the areas of Kelbadya, Agdam, Lachin, and Gazakh to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan did not recover Stepanakert, the core of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. As a major tyrant in the southern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, Aliyev was not satisfied with this result, and the operation to retake the territory of Azerbaijan was a failure, and by that time the countdown to the next Nagorno-Karabakh conflict had actually begun.
The Russian military police force involved in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
The second is the decline of Russian influence in the South Caucasus region. In fact, the ceasefire agreement led by Russia in 2020 has both Russia's intention to mediate and sell at a price, and there are also factors that Russia is too lazy to manage in the southern foothills of the South Caucasus Mountains. The subsequent addition of the United States and Turkey has further confused the situation in Asia, and Russia's focus on the southern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains has further decreased due to the concentration of strategic gravity in Europe due to SMO (Special Military Operation) in 2022. Therefore, at this time, if Russia is allowed to separate the armies of Asia and Afghanistan, Russia may not want to do it, and even if it wants to do it, it may not be able to do it.
And Armenia is in a hurry to hug the thigh of the United States, and now it is not really hugging, and the two sides are still in a state of eyebrows. The EU's attitude is even more ambiguous, because the Caspian natural gas held by Azerbaijan is of great significance to solving the EU's energy problem, so the EU is even happy to see Azerbaijan teach Armenia a lesson, and even penetrate Nakhichevan in order to transport the Caspian natural gas to Europe and solve the urgent needs of European industry.
Therefore, on the whole, the current external situation is also very favorable for Aliyev, and both internal and external factors are favorable, then Aliyev will definitely do what he says.
Azerbaijan crushed in strength
And judging by the actions of the Azerbaijani army and the balance of forces between Armenia and Azerbaijani troops, there will basically be no suspense in this new round of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the only question is when Azerbaijan will be able to take all of Nagorno-Karabakh:
Armenian artillery positions destroyed by Azerbaijani drones during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
On the one hand, after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020, both the Armenian army and the Azerbaijani army suffered relatively large losses, but in the subsequent military reconstruction, the Armenian army has fallen behind the Azerbaijani army. Not only is there nothing new in conventional military strength, but the Azerbaijani TB-2 UAV, Harpo patrol missiles, etc., which caused great trouble to the Armenian army last time, Armenia also does not have any targeted countermeasures.
On the contrary, the Azerbaijani army has carried out a serious rearmament war, continuing to import a large number of new combat equipment such as reconnaissance and combat drones and patrol missiles from Turkey and Israel, and has also stockpiled a large number of artillery ammunition and short-range ballistic missiles. Therefore, this time there was a little Azerbaijani shock as soon as it was shot.
On the other hand, the Armenian army is in a state of rot largely because the strategic situation is too poor. After the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020, the Nagorno-Karabakh region was largely isolated, with only a 5,000-kilometer area on both sides of the Lachin corridor connecting Armenia itself with Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. Once the Afghan army launches an attack on the Lachin corridor, this fragile corridor will inevitably be cut off, and the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region will be completely isolated, and this kind of battle cannot be fought.
Therefore, it is better to say that after 2020, Armenia has pinned its efforts to maintain the status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on the assistance and mediation of external forces. For example, in May 2023, Blinken held a trilateral meeting with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Ivan estimated that the conditions for Armenia at that time may be "sovereignty belongs to Afghanistan and governance is mine", but this diplomatic operation is obviously not successful.
Now after the fight, the Azerbaijani army really stabbed from the back of the Lachin corridor, this knife is still unclear whether it hit the point, if it really stabbed, then this year's Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, just opened the gong there is no suspense.
How is Armenia coping?
Therefore, from this point of view, after the Azerbaijani army fought against the "army of the Republic of Ertsakh", the Armenian army not only did not make a move, but the Ministry of Defense was busy picking up its relationship with the local government in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Pashinyan did not forget to boycott Russia while plucking himself out, you can see what Armenia's strategic intentions are. Ivan believes that Armenia has now abandoned the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and the strategic focus is twofold:
The first is to try to avoid entering the conflict with Azerbaijan, which would give Aliyev an excuse to further expand the conflict. This pretext inevitably led to the Azerbaijani army penetrating the southern part of the Armenian territory and connecting the Azerbaijani mainland with the western enclave of Nakhichevan. This is a strategic disaster for Armenia, and it is necessary to stop the loss in time, which is why Armenia does not admit that it is in the conflict with Azerbaijan.
The second is to pave the way for public opinion to abandon Russia and make good relations with the United States in the future. In fact, from Armenia's point of view, all current problems can be attributed to the incompleteness of the US vote and the incomplete cutting between Russia. Since Azerbaijan has opened fire, Russia has not moved, and the cards of all sides have basically turned over, there is no need for Armenia to continue to swing between the United States and Russia, and it is expected that it will fall to the United States in an all-round way.
Of course, we also said before that if Azerbaijan really intends to penetrate Nakhichevan, it will definitely not be his own idea, and there must be Erdogan's "Great Sultan" behind it. If Aliyev really dares to hit southern Armenia, then it means that the relations between the parties have been balanced, in which case Armenia can avoid this knife by being an ostrich, which will not work, let's keep it in the dark for the time being.
Armenia abandons Russia and fully embraces the United States, of course, this is not a big problem, everyone has their own aspirations. But we also said before, how much strategic value your Armenia has to the United States, how much bargaining power you have, and whether you can surpass the combination of Turkey and Azerbaijan, this also needs to be questioned. Of course, for the Armenian top, now the United States is wearing a pink filter, how to see how to look at it is pleasing to the eye, then we don't need to say more, respect understanding and blessing three times in a row.
How does Big Ivan view this conflict?
Finally, to say more, when Big Ivan commented on this round of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on Weibo last night, some readers commented later, saying that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Big Ivan supports Azerbaijan?
In fact, neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan, Big Ivan, does not support either. A person who completely pins his fate on external forces, without the slightest courage to be self-reliant; Another clerical establishment has a strong mentality, and the last Nagorno-Karabakh conflict brought a bunch of people from Syria to be "Ghulam cannon fodder". All in all, both sides are quite abstract.
Big Ivan is most concerned that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is now showing an increasingly interconnected trend, especially this Nakhichevan problem. If Aliyev really fights with Erdogan and penetrates southern Armenia, then the sudden deterioration of Iran's northern strategic situation will directly lead to Turkey's strategic influence entering Central Asia in large numbers, which is by no means good news for many countries. If we do not want to listen to the Ceddin Denden (Ottoman military music) in Central Asia in a few years, Azerbaijan must not continue to attack Armenia itself, and we must maintain the territorial and sovereign integrity of Armenia, which should be the bottom line that must be followed.