Russia began to withdraw military personnel from Nagorno-Karabakh

Russia has begun withdrawing military personnel from Nagorno-Karabakh. They were there on a peacekeeping mission in the fall of 2020 by agreement between Baku, Yerevan and Moscow. In 2023, Azerbaijan carried out a military operation in the region, as a result of which the unrecognized Armenian republic ceased to exist in it, and about 120 thousand people were forced to leave their homes.

The Azerbaijani media reported on Wednesday that the Russian military began to leave Karabakh. Armenian edition News.am said, citing an anonymous diplomatic source, that the troops would be withdrawn gradually. The withdrawal of troops was confirmed in a conversation with reporters by Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

Karabakh was populated predominantly by Armenians and received autonomous status within the Azerbaijan SSR during Soviet times. In the late 1980s, ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis led to a war that ended with the expulsion of Azerbaijanis from the region.

In 2020, Baku managed to regain part of the territory through a military operation. Russian military personnel were stationed there after that. They were supposed to be stationed there until 2025. Six of them were killed during the shelling.

In Armenia, the exodus of Armenians from Karabakh named the result of Baku’s policy of ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Russian peacekeepers failed to protect the population of the region. Moscow stated that thanks to the military, mass civilian deaths were avoided. In Baku statedthat the Russian military were intermediaries in the surrender of the Karabakh authorities to the Azerbaijani military.