The 19/20 September 2026 marks the third anniversary of the full liberation of Karabakh by Azerbaijani forces from the Armenian occupation of nearly 3 decades. It was the culmination of one of the most successful examples of statesmanship and effective military action that has been witnessed in the world for many a year.

In November 2020 Azerbaijan had succeeded in liberating the bulk of its national territories and restored its sovereignty over Karabakh. International law, which negotiation and great power diplomacy had failed to impress on the Armenian occupation, had been successfully implemented on the battlefield by Azerbaijan’s armed forces. The regeneration and repopulation of Karabakh, along with the search for a durable political settlement, began.

According to the Armistice of 10 November 2020 Armenia returned control of the Kalbajar district to Azerbaijan by November 15th, and the Lachin district by December 1st, 2020. The 5km-wide Lachin corridor was kept, ensuring the connection of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. The town of Shusha remained in the hands of Azerbaijan. In addition, by November 20th, Armenia returned control of the Aghdam district and a part of the Kazakh district to Azerbaijan.

It was agreed that Russian peacekeepers would be deployed for the period of five years with an automatic renewal for an additional five-year period – if none of the parties to the agreement decided to withdraw from it. In 2020, when Azerbaijan won the Second Karabakh War and reduced “Artsakh” to a rump of the old Oblast, an agreement to end the War, brokered by President Putin, left 2,000 Russian Peacekeepers in place in the remaining Armenian controlled area.

The general belief in the South Caucasus was that Moscow would play the Armenians and Azerbaijanis off against each other to remain as long as possible, manipulating political forces in the region in the Kremlin’s own strategic interest, as had happened in Georgia with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Spokesman Peskov warned Yerevan that Russia had a historic place in the Caucasus.

However, then came the Ukraine War of 2022 and the Kremlin remarkably was out-manoeuvred by both Yerevan and Baku. Russia’s difficulty was the South Caucasus’ opportunity!

The Ilham Aliyev Government in Baku played a very wise and skilful game in relation to Moscow. It had developed the Azerbaijan State into a substantial economic force with a professional and well-equipped army, and with an officer corps trained in Turkiye. Azerbaijan under the Aliyevs was a good neighbour to Russia but refused to be intimidated by it. Putin made threatening noises and took some actions in 2020 aimed at deterring Azerbaijan from moving against the Armenian occupation – but Aliyev called his bluff. 

Putin had to deal with the growing substance of Azerbaijan that had to be taken account of. Forget the Western propaganda, the Russian President is a pragmatist at heart, who respects strength where he finds it. Threat is, of course, a wholly different matter for Vladimir Putin, as Georgia and Ukraine, earmarked for NATO, found out. Azerbaijan never represented a threat to Russia and that was a deliberate act of State by the Aliyevs.

Russia adopted a more even balance in the region as a consequence, moving from its traditional pro-Armenian position. This put the Armenian nose out of joint because the Armenians felt entitled in relation to Russia, due to history and the dependent relationship it had acquired that had been enhanced with the expansion into Karabakh.

The Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, however, had been turned by the West. Annoyed at not being rescued by Moscow during the Second Karabakh War – a war of his own making – and presumably having received an offer he could not refuse from Washington, Pashinyan decided to jettison the occupation in the interest of remaining in power and Westernising Armenia – to break its dependence on Russia. He calculated that Russia had been disabled by being lured into the Ukraine quagmire and it was the opportunity and time to strike out for freedom and the West. He would blame the Russians for all Armenia’s and “Artsakh’s” misfortunes and opt for Western protection of his government and state. He calculated that he would be rewarded with protection by Washington.

It was this opportunism that did for what the West continued to call “Nagorno Karabakh” and begun the rapid collapse of the “Artsakh” pseudo-state. The US was never going to defend the illegal, unrecognised state in Karabakh, which it always viewed as a Russian construction, existing in Moscow’s interest. There was a confluence of interest between West and Russia, as well as Baku and Yerevan, in dissolving it.

Prime Minister Pashinyan proved a gift from God for Azerbaijan. Any previous concern at what would happen in 2025, when the Russians could be asked to leave under the Trilateral treaty, faded into history. Putin and his peacekeepers, caught off balance by Pashinyan’s sudden about turn to the West, was forced to collaborate with Baku in the destruction of the pseudo-state, it had probably intended to uphold for as long as it could.

From the latter part of 2022, concerned at Armenian intransigence with regard to negotiations and availing of Russia being concerned with more serious matters, Baku began to put the squeeze upon the illegal occupation regime in Karabakh. The screw was increasingly tightened in order to weaken the hold the remnants of the occupation had on Azerbaijan’s territory.

This began with environmental protests against the continued economic exploitation of Azerbaijani land by the occupiers. The Trilateral Declaration, signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia contained Article 6 stipulating that “The Lachin Corridor (5 km wide) will provide a connection between Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia while not passing through the territory of Shusha” and “shall remain under the control of the Russian Federation peace making forces… The Republic of Azerbaijan shall guarantee the security of persons, vehicles and cargo moving along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”

Azerbaijan by this provision agreed to grant special entry and exit to Armenian citizens, vehicles, and cargo along an 80 km road on the territory of Azerbaijan to its Karabakh region, then populated exclusively by ethnic Armenians. As the road was under the control of a Russian peacekeeping force, Azerbaijan’s security apparatus, including customs, did not check persons and cargo. The Russian peacekeeping force exercised this function on behalf of Azerbaijan.

For about a year tensions built up with Azerbaijan accusing Armenia of abusing the corridor’s “civilian and humanitarian” purpose for military use, in transporting weapons, including landmines, and the products of illegal mining activities in Karabakh, in contradiction to provisions of the Trilateral Declaration. The Lachin road was not an extraterritorial corridor because neither Armenia nor Russia had any rights over the route across Azerbaijan’s territory. The temporary visa-free conditions of travel did not grant Armenia the right to transport military personnel or supplies to remaining army units in Karabakh. 

Article 4 of the Trilateral Declaration stipulated that the “withdrawal of Armenian troops” must take place from the territory of Azerbaijan. However, this was not implemented by Yerevan. The International Crisis Group estimated that there were still 12,000 Armenian soldiers in Karabakh, on Azerbaijan’s territory in 2022.

This situation prompted Azerbaijani protesters into starting protests close to the Russia-controlled checkpoint on the road to Stepanakert/Khankendi from December 2022, against illegal mining operations in Karabakh. The protest camp was successful in deterring the import of weapons and export of Azerbaijan’s natural resources in the absence of formal customs barriers and checking.

It would be unreasonable to expect Azerbaijan, or any country in the world, to tolerate the use of its territory by a foreign state for illicit mineral exploitations and cross-border weapons trafficking.

The environmental protest was one aspect of a wider state directed campaign which began to put the squeeze on Armenia, to induce it to accept the reality of defeat and recognise that Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, de jure and de facto. The process was aimed at emphasising the de facto element of Azerbaijan’s control to Yerevan. Azerbaijan then began to exercise its right as a sovereign state to regulate movement and refuse entry to individual Armenians to Karabakh. Movement out of Karabakh was unrestricted.

The occupation regime began to introduce ration cards and the Armenian lobby attempted to mount a campaign internationally depicting Baku’s actions as a “blockade” or “siege” and even an attempted “Genocide”. They received some high-profile support both in the European Parliament and from a group of US Congressmen in their campaign. However, when Baku offered to supply the Armenians with provisions from Azerbaijan, as opposed to the free access from Armenia, this was rejected in favour of an international propaganda effort directed against Baku.

Azerbaijan also began to militarily manoeuvre into position for the final thrust that would complete the liberation. In February 2022 the Armenian Government revealed, in a case against the Azerbaijan Government at the International Court of Justice, that it had lost 215 sq. km of its territory to Azerbaijan since the conclusion of the 2020 war. It showed a map detailing the losses from May 2021 to February 2023. These losses came from sudden limited thrusts by the Azerbaijani army into areas of strategic value. Azerbaijan was very clever in this. The border between Armenia and Azerbaijan was not properly delineated. Soviet maps, the agreed basis for settlement between the 3 parties to the Trilateral Declaration, are inconsistent in some areas and there are “grey zones”. There was an agreement to officially demarcate the border as part of the Trilateral Declaration but because Armenia had not played ball in other aspects of the agreement Azerbaijan exploited the ambiguity to pressurise Yerevan and gain military advantage at the same time.

The last vestiges of the 30-year Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan collapsed after a day of intense military effort, described as an anti-terrorist operation, was applied to it by Baku’s forces. International Law and the UN Resolutions of 1993 were implemented and the illegal, unrecognised by the World, “Artsakh” pseudo-state collapsed.

The following is an extract from the book 44 Days: Karabakh from Occupation to Liberation (available from Amazon UK) by the present writer, telling the story of the full liberation of Karabakh in mid-September 2023:

“In late August 2023 the Russian Foreign Minister had presented a new set of proposals to Yerevan about the future situation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. Dikran Bedrosyan, who was close to the so-called “Artsakh President”, shared a draft of Lavrov’s proposal on his Facebook page. The document bears the title: “The main principles and standards of ensuring the security and rights of the Armenian population in the territory of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijani SSR, in accordance with the legislation of Azerbaijan”.

Bedrosyan states that during a July meeting in Moscow, Lavrov presented this new document to the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. While there was no official acknowledgement of this by any of the involved parties, the fact that the document’s content was disclosed by a source closely linked to the “President of Artsakh” suggests it was genuine. These things are always kept confidential during peace processes to prevent derailment through public airing or damaging leaks.

The document presented by Lavrov outlined a series of proposals concerning the Armenian population residing in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Russian document recommended that the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh be granted legal safeguards and protections, with discrimination based on language, nationality, or religion to be expressly prohibited by the Azerbaijani State. Among the stipulations of the proposal was that the Armenian population should not face any form of involuntary or coerced displacement, and the security and well-being of those residing in the region be protected in Azerbaijani law. The document called for guaranteeing several rights of Armenians, in particular, religious freedom, preservation of cultural and national identity, education in Armenian, and their right to keep all existing private property held.

The Armenians were extremely disappointed by Lavrov’s proposals and instantly rejected them. They saw the proposals as aiming to make the Armenians functional and peaceful citizens of Azerbaijan. Massispost, an Armenian media outlet stated:

“Lavrov’s proposed plan does not fully meet the aspirations and yearnings of the people of Artsakh for genuine autonomy and liberty. Given the present circumstances, where Azerbaijan’s actions have taken on a genocidal nature, the resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh Problem seems to necessitate a distinctive approach: the unequivocal recognition of the internationally established right to self-determination. This can be accomplished only through the principle of Secession for Salvation.”

This was to prove the Karabakh Armenians’ last chance of making terms with Azerbaijan, but their leaders remained intransigent until the bitter end.

The last vestiges of the 30-year Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan finally collapsed after a day of intense military effort, on 19/20^th September 2023 which was described as an anti-terrorist operation by Baku’s forces.

Azerbaijan’s anti-terrorist operation could be described more accurately as a demilitarisation operation against the holdout Armenian militias in mountainous Karabakh. Under the guise of “defence forces” armed Armenians remained on Azerbaijan’s territory. Periodic exchanges of fire occurred across the line of contact and there were persistent arms smuggling from Armenia and the continuation of mine laying within Azerbaijani territory. By this time over 300 people had died from mine explosions since the end of the war in the areas around mountainous Karabakh, liberated in 2020, and being rebuilt and resettled with some of the surviving Azerbaijanis ethnically cleansed between 1991 and 1994 by Armenian forces.

The fatalities which were to be the spark for the anti-terrorist operation had signs of a planned ambush by Armenian separatist sabotage squads, infiltrating the line of contact. As a result of the explosion of a landmine recently planted by Armenian forces on the Fuzuli-Shusha highway, two civilian employees of the Road Construction Authority of Azerbaijan were killed. When police reached the scene a further 7 policemen were killed by another freshly laid mine. The probable objective of the saboteurs was to spread fear, indiscriminately kill Azerbaijani civilians and hinder further reconstruction work in liberated areas, proving that newly constructed roads were not safe for travel. This would deter Azerbaijani IDPs from returning to their former homes. This was the last straw for Baku.

The Armenian militias put up resistance, but after 24 hours of the Azerbaijan military operation the “Artsakh” regime at Stepanakert capitulated. The securing of Azerbaijan’s border over the past year had left only a remnant of Armenian forces in mountainous Karabakh, without air defences or much heavy weaponry. Resistance from the militias proved futile and the Azerbaijani operation was both carefully and precisely targeted on military posts and personnel.

The Azerbaijanis had concentrated combat formations of special forces at key points, with one pincer pointing toward Aghdere/Martakert and another toward Khojavend/Martuni. These were backed up by artillery units and drone operators. The Armenians’ communications networks were paralysed, and reinforcements could not be sent where they were needed. Soon the Azerbaijanis were pushing toward Khankendi/Stepanakert having opened another front from Shusha. With the Azerbaijanis at Krkjan, less than a mile from the city centre the Armenian command realised it had lost control and capitulated.

According to Armenians a couple of hundred of their forces were killed with 400 wounded, while civilian casualties appear to have been minimal and less than 5 per cent of total fatalities. Civilians were warned of operations by Baku through text messages and humanitarian corridors were organised both by the Azerbaijanis and Russians, and fully respected.

During the Azerbaijani military operation, the Russian peacekeepers stuck to their original mandate from the Trilateral Agreement of 2020. It was not in their remit to subdue military conflict by force, and certainly not to resist Azerbaijani forces on their own territory. The peacekeepers assisted in the evacuation of Armenian villagers from places that came within the conflict zone, and 8 were unfortunately killed, including the Deputy Commander, in the line of duty. The Russian peacekeepers then brokered a ceasefire to arrange the surrender of the separatist regime. It appeared that the Russians were aware of what was happening and assisted in the final demise of Nagorno-Karabakh, to assist the transition to liberation. It was evident that Moscow was fully informed about the Azerbaijan’s military operation and collaborated with it.

So, finally after 3 decades the “Artsakh” pseudo-state was no more and its leaders surrendered to full de facto Azerbaijani sovereignty. The President of the so-called Armenian “Republic of Artsakh” Samvel Shakhramanyan signed a document on 28 September which decreed the dissolution of all “state institutions and organisations” by January 1 2024. This effectively ended the existence of the last remnants of the occupation and signalled the absorption of the population as full and equal citizens into the Republic of Azerbaijan. 

Nagorno Karabakh was, therefore, no more. It went into the dustbin of history – to coin a phrase of Trotsky. It collapsed like a pack of cards in little over 24 hours. Without Armenia, and without Russia, it was nothing. It had claimed “self-determination” for decades, ever since it found it could not join with Armenia (Miatsum) without bringing Armenia down with it, as an affront to international law. But it was incapable of actual self-determination, being only a pseudo-state, a false front of Armenia, which the Armenian Prime Minister finally decided he could do without, after the trouble it had caused him in 2020. It represented less than 1 per cent of the population of the state of Azerbaijan by that time and was unrecognised by everybody in the world and completely isolated.

The Armenian population left en masse. The Azerbaijan Government could not keep its Armenian population by force, if it chose to leave. The prophesy by David Babayan, aired on the BBC, that there would be a “Biblical Exodus” of Armenians, came to pass.

The Armenian nationalist diaspora encouraged the voluntary mass exodus of Armenian population of Karabakh. It continued to represent this migration in the West as an “ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide” to international bodies. But the Armenians in Karabakh were encouraged to fear the incoming Azerbaijanis and not to trust the Russians as peacekeepers. They, of course, had cleared 750,000 Azerbaijanis out of the region in the early 1990s and obviously did not want them back as neighbours. Not wanting to submit to living under the authority of Baku, and wanting to remain exclusively Armenian, they left peacefully, in an orderly manner for Armenia.

Yerevan went along with the hysteria in order to damn the Russians and escape their embrace. Pashinyan obviously concluded that any anger he might face from those who fled could be handled with the West at his back. The West had secured, with the exodus of the Armenians, the exit of the Russians, and were happy to back Pashinyan in what he was doing. They sent their “humanitarians” to Armenia to utter platitudes, for the record, but secretly they were probably pleased with the end of the problem of the illegal entity.

This was, therefore, the final act and outworking of the 44 Day War, as the Armenian occupation of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan gave way to the complete liberation of the whole territory.”