Caucaz

For the second time this year, another round of fighting has broken out in Nagorno-Karabakh, home to the longest-running war on former Soviet soil. Since the late 1980s, the conflict has killed roughly 20,000 people and made refugees of hundreds of thousands more. The self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (officially named the Republic of Artsakh) enjoys close ties to Armenia (though Yerevan has not formally recognized the breakaway republic’s independence), while Azerbaijan insists that this area is its own territory. The stalemate regularly flares up as it has in the past week, but the latest escalation became more serious when Armenia mobilized its military (and Azerbaijan partially mobilized). What started this conflict and what are the risks of renewed fighting? Which is correct: Karabakh or Artsakh? Meduza reviews the background basics and answers other burning questions about a war that refuses to go away.

Any move to all-out war could drag in Russia and Turkey, which is a close ally of Azerbaijan.

Fighting between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces entered a fourth day on Wednesday in the biggest eruption of their decades-old conflict since a 1994 ceasefire.

The Black Sea is becoming a region for the use of the military language between the armies of Russia and NATO,.

In major escalation, deadly clashes erupted along state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, killing at least 18, raising risk of further hostilities in August.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for an attack in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Ingushetia, in which a police officer was killed.