Russia reports peacekeepers killed in Nagorno-Karabakh fighting

A military vehicle carrying Russian peacekeepers came under fire and its crew was killed as Azerbaijan stepped up its attacks on the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Moscow confirmed Wednesday.

In a statement released by the Ministry of Defense, officials said that the patrol was hit near the village of Dzhanyatag. “A car with Russian servicemen came under small arms fire. As a result of the shelling, the Russian servicemen in the vehicle were killed,” the message reads. The number of dead was not disclosed.

The incident comes after Azerbaijan launched attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh and its armed forces announced they had effectively taken control of the breakaway region in a lightning offensive operation. A Moscow-brokered ceasefire has since been agreed, with talks on the future of the territory slated for Thursday.

The Armenian government has presided over an increasingly fierce row with the Kremlin, citing Russian peacekeepers’ inaction in the region.

Earlier this month, Armenia, once a close Kremlin ally, decided to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion. Yerevan also intended to conduct joint military drills with the United States.

With Russia distracted by its increasingly catastrophic war in Ukraine, fears are growing in Armenia over whether President Vladimir Putin’s soldiers are willing or able to keep the peace in the Caucasus. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told POLITICO in an interview last week that the peacekeeping mission had failed.

“As a result of the events in Ukraine, the capabilities of Russia have changed,” Pashinyan said, acknowledging that Moscow was seeking to avoid alienating Azerbaijan and its close ally Turkey, both of which have risen in strategic importance for the Kremlin since the start of the war in Ukraine.

“Russia will abandon Armenia, it will not fight there, it is not a partner for any country. All the commitments that Russia has made to Armenia are now worth nothing, and it will leave it alone with this problem,” Olexiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, told the Ukrainska Pravda news website in the wake of the offensive.