Baku counts 550 dead Armenian soldiers in Nagorno-Karabakh

RIA Novosti clarifies the losses of Armenia, announced by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense: 15 Osa air defense systems, 18 drones, and 8 artillery mounts.

At the same time, the Azerbaijani side denies reports of its own losses, which were previously announced by Yerevan. Armenian Defense Minister Artsrun Hovhannisyan said that Azerbaijan had lost about 200 servicemen, as well as about 30 tanks.

On the losses of the Armenian side: the press secretary of the Armenian Ministry of Defense Shushan Stepanyan earlier announced 16 dead.

Baku and Yerevan exchange mutual accusations in the shelling that began on 27 September. The Armenian Defense Ministry says that Karabakh "was subjected to air and missile attacks" from Azerbaijan. Baku claims that Armenian forces opened fire and Azerbaijani troops launched a counteroffensive operation.

The Armenian government declared martial law and general mobilization in the country. "I urge the personnel assigned to the troops to report to their territorial military commissariats", Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page.

In the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, supported by Armenia, martial law has also been introduced and the mobilization of men over 18 years old has been declared. The ombudsman of the unrecognized republic reported that a woman and a child had died as a result of shelling by the Azerbaijani army of residential quarters of its capital, Stepanakert. The media reported that on September 27 an air raid siren sounded in Stepanakert, and civilians were asked to hide in basements and bomb shelters.

Previous military clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border took place for several weeks in July 2020 in the Tovuz and Tavush regions, located several hundred kilometers from Nagorno-Karabakh. Against the background of the conflict, there were clashes between representatives of the Armenian and Azerbaijani diasporas in different cities of the world, including Moscow. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh itself is the oldest in the post-Soviet space, it arose during the perestroika period, when in 1988 the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its secession from the then Azerbaijan SSR.

Observers assess the new round of exacerbation differently.

Human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, for example, saw the "hand of Moscow" in what was happening: "A reliable source from Moscow said that Putin made it clear to Erdogan that Moscow and the Russian army would not interfere in the conflict and support the conditionally pro-Western Pashinyan. In fact, they gave the go-ahead. Turkey transferred mercenaries from Syria to Azerbaijan and off we go.As a result, a de facto war broke out on September 27, 20, people are dying, tomorrow the world media will come out with photos of burning tanks on the front pages of newspapers and half the world will ask a strong player in the region - Putin - to bring order and calm Armenia and Azerbaijan. And they will forget the story about Novichok, Sharite and Navalny, and the blocking of Nord Stream 2. If only there was no war. Crimea - Donbas, Syria, now Karabakh... This source is rarely wrong..."