Op-ed from Yerevan: why military actions have begun in Karabakh now

Political analyst Alexander Iskandaryan believes that Azerbaijan was preparing in advance for military operations on the line of contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Karabakh:

“Actions of this scale cannot be accidental. Moreover, Stepanakert is being shelled for the first time in the last 26 years. The presence there of a journalist from the Turkish state TV channel TNT, who has been working since the very first minutes of the outbreak of hostilities, also testifies to this. How events will develop and how the Armenian authorities will react depends on the scale of the escalation”.

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When asked what this means, why the large-scale military actions have just begun, Alexander Iskandaryan answered:

“The escalation in Artsakh is explained by the revanchist sentiments of the Azerbaijani authorities after the recent defeat in July this year. The Azerbaijani authorities feel frustrated, and in a sense they went all in. This indicates that decision making is often not only rational but also emotional. And we must also take into account that Azerbaijan is a country with a specific regime, a complex country. And there are serious problems in the ranks of the Azerbaijani elite, which were evident long before the recent events.”