Over the last week fighting has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is an area of Azerbaijan that broke away from Azerbaijan with the help of Armenia when the Soviet Union was breaking up in 1991. They went to war over it in 1991-92 and Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself the independent Republic of Artsakh on 10 December 1991.
Not sure what caused this conflict in the Caucasus to flair back up, Both of these nations have a surplus of old Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers and fighting vehicles. The predominantly Christian Armenia tends to be supported by Russia while the predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan tends to be supported by Turkey. This is not the first time in history that Russia and Turkey had an argument over this region.
There was an article published yesterday that I found interesting:
https://news.yahoo.com/armor-attrition-nagorno-karabakh-battle-225735581.html
A few highlights:
- 95 people have been killed (including 11 civilians).
- Wikipeida is reporting higher losses. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
- 152 Armenia servicemen killed
- 30+ Azerbaijan servicemen killed
- 28-30 Syrian fighters killed
- 19 Azerbaijani and 13 Armenian civilians killed.
- Wikipeida is reporting higher losses. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
- Armenia claims it has destroyed 137 tanks (doubtful).
- Azerbaijan claims it has destroyed 130 tanks and ACVs (doubtful).
Also, the video in the article of two tanks in a column being shot is pretty interesting.
The alliance combos are interesting. Russia is at least at some level allied with both. But as you note, more so Armenia.
Azerbaijan is mostly Shia, yet are allies with Sunni Turkey. They also brought up mercenaries from Syria, which is a Russian ally.
There have been recent fighting between Azerbaijan and Iran as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2020_Armenian%E2%80%93Azerbaijani_clashes