Russia Exacerbating Armenian-Azeri Conflict, Baku Says

Apparently not content with the conflicts in Syria, Libya and Ukraine, Russia recently re-involved itself in yet another regional dispute, a source close to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev charged on Saturday. According to senior Aliyev adviser Hikmet Hajiyev, Moscow has been “intensively” supplying Armenia with weapons on a regular basis, redoubling efforts since skirmishes broke out in July between Armenia and Azerbaijan, killing 17 people in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. While Russia has claimed its airlifts are solely for construction supplies, Hajiyev dismissed the notion, explaining that such materials “are usually not supplied in airplanes,” adding as well that Russian arms “are being shipped to [Syria] via the Armenia territory.” Currently held mostly by Armenian forces, Nagorno-Karabakh has been the center of ethnic and territorial clashes for over three decades, with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced on both sides.