Azerbaijan fully regains control over Nagorno-Karabakh in less than a day after the operation began
As a result of a military operation with the massive use of high-precision weapons, the Azerbaijani armed forces forced the “government” of the unrecognized “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” to capitulate. The operation took less than 24 hours to complete.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense reported that on September 20 at 12:00 (Kyiv time) an agreement was reached to end the “anti-terrorist operations”. According to them, all Armenian formations must lay down their arms, hand them over to the Azerbaijani military, leave their positions and the territory of Azerbaijan, i.e., leave Karabakh. At the same time, all military units of the unrecognized republic are being disbanded.
It is noted that this process should take place in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent deployed in the region on the basis of an agreement reached on November 10, 2020, after the end of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. A meeting between representatives of the Nagorno-Karabakh “government” and representatives of Azerbaijan is scheduled for September 21 in Yevlakh.
Compared to the events of 2020, when the war lasted 44 days, this operation is lightning fast. Its characteristic feature was the massive use of high-precision weapons and attack drones, including the Bayraktar TB2. In particular, in the first hours of the operation, Azerbaijan actively attacked air defense positions, communications, warehouses and command posts, and later moved on to targeting positions and destroying enemy artillery.
As of the evening of September 19, Baku reported that it had destroyed 6 electronic warfare stations, 2 SAMs, 40 artillery systems, 30 mortars, and 20 enemy combat vehicles.
It should be noted that since the beginning of the operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, official Yerevan has simply distanced itself, saying that no country’s forces are present in the region. In turn, Russian “peacekeepers,” according to various sources, were either blocked or withdrew from the area, handing over the coordinates of Armenian positions. In other words, no alternative was seen for the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”.
This once again proves that all the “unrecognized republics” that have appeared around Russia exist as long as the Kremlin can maintain their existence.
But of course, the start of peace talks does not mean the immediate establishment of Baku’s full constitutional control over its territory. And there is clearly a difficult path ahead for the full integration of the region, which has been in the status of an “unrecognized republic” since 1991.
