Casualties as Azerbaijan, Armenia renews clashes

KABUL (Pajhwok): Azerbaijani and Armenian forces have resumed heavy fighting, using artillery, mortars and drones, a media report said on Wednesday.

Heavy fighting broke out between the two sides after Azerbaijan appeared to launch a large-scale attack on Armenian territory, ABC News said.

The renewed clashes triggered a crisis that posed a potentially serious challenge for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the report.

Armenia accused Azerbaijan of using heavy artillery, mortars and drones to target its troops, as well as towns along its border with the disputed enclave Nagorno-Karabakh.

The hostilities starting in the early hours of Tuesday left at least 49 Armenian troops dead.

Russia claimed it had brokered a ceasefire to halt the violence on Tuesday night, but Armenia said some fighting was still going on, though less intensely.

Each side accused the other’s forces of firing artillery along the border on Tuesday night.

The fighting is the worst since the two nations waged a bloody war in 2020, in which tens of thousands of civilians were displaced and thousands of troops killed, after Azerbaijan launched an offensive to retake the enclave that is the object of a decades-long conflict.

nh/mud

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