Opportunity!

Azerbaijan definitely not above taking the opportunity to take some more bites out of Armenia:

Fighting erupted Tuesday between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the latest flare-up in their decades-long armed standoff over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucuses. The clashes raised the prospect of Russia becoming embroiled in another war near its borders.

Each side blamed the other for the fighting that broke out along their border early Tuesday. It was the worst escalation of hostilities between the two countries since a 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh and a cease-fire brokered by Russia that ended large-scale fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces.

The NYT report is fairly even-handed but other stuff I’ve seen indicates that this is clearly an escalation by the Azeris. The politics of the region are horribly complicated with rough Iran-Armenia and Turkey-Azerbaijan axes that Moscow has tried (not too successfully as of late) to balance and cajole into a difficult peace. Baku seems to believe that neither Tehran nor Moscow have much that they can offer Armenia at the moment, and Baku is probably correct.