Lachin Marks Last Of Territorial Transfers To Azerbaijan, But Results Remain Murky

Russian peacekeepers are seen at a checkpoint in the town of Lachin (called Berdzor in Armenian) on December 1, 2020, the day Azerbaijan officially regained control of the town from Armenian forces after more than 28 years. A sleepy regional seat with an estimated population of less than a few thousand, Lachin holds immense strategic value. It sits on one of two working roads that connect breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. 

Five days before the arrival of Azerbaijani troops on December 1, 2020, Margarita Khanaghian, 81, walks past an armored personnel carrier for Russian peacekeepers in the town of Lachin (Berdzor). How many of the town's ethnic Armenian residents opted to stay despite the town's return to Azerbaijani control is unknown. 

Azerbaijani soldiers hold national flags and portraits of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, left, and his father, the late President Heydar Aliyev, as they celebrate the return of the Lachin district to Azerbaijan's control on December 1, 2020. The region, which neighbors breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh, had been under Armenian control since May 1992. 

Azerbaijani military trucks move through the town of Lachin (Berdzor) on December 1, 2020. The larger Lachin district is the last of three districts adjoining breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh that Armenia agreed to return to Azerbaijani control under a November 9, 2020 truce. 

A man shows a newborn calf in his car on a road outside of the town of Lachin (Berdzor) on November 29, 2020, two days before the town's return to Azerbaijan. With his vehicle stuffed with household items, he appears to be one of the many ethnic Armenians leaving the area for Armenia. 

A local resident watches a burning house in the town of Lachin (Berdzor) on November 30, 2020, the day before the town returned to Azerbaijani control. Another town resident told Agence France Presse that he had no intention of leaving: "People live on both sides of borders after wars, and things are fine," said the man, a grocery-store owner. 

Military vehicles used by Russian peacekeepers travel a road outside of the town of Lachin (Berdzor) on November 29, 2020. Under the ceasefire deal with Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian peacekeepers will be stationed along the so-called Lachin Corridor, a roughly 80-kilometer-long road that connects breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. 

Not all residents of the Lachin region necessarily feel safer because of Russian peacekeeping forces. In the village of Zabukh, near the Lachin Corridor, one volunteer stands at the ready with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle on November 26, 2020. A Twitter video from elsewhere in the district shows an elderly ethnic Armenian woman carrying a rifle ahead of the arrival of Azerbaijani forces on December 1, 2020. 

Over the past few weeks, posing for photos with Russian peacekeepers has become a standard pastime for Azerbaijani and Armenian servicemen alike. Here, Armenian soldiers are featured with two Russian peacekeepers (center) two days before the return of Azerbaijani troops to the town of Kalbacar (Karvachar in Armenian) on November 25, 2020. The Kalbacar region was the second territory restored to Azerbaijani control under Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia's November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement.

The Azerbaijani army prepares on November 25, 2020 to retake control of the Kalbacar district, which lies to the northwest of Nagorno-Karabakh and borders on Armenia. Its loss in 1993 to ethnic Armenian forces proved another turning point in the 1992-1994 Karabakh War. Kalbacar's fall was followed by the collapse of Azerbaijani President Albufaz Elchibey's government two months later, and the advent to power of Heidar Aliyev, father of Azerbaijan's current president, Ilham Aliyev. 

Azerbaijani soldiers stand at a checkpoint on a road outside the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shusha (Shushi in Armenian) on November 26, 2020. After Azerbaijan regained control of the town in early November, relatively little has been reported about conditions there. Shusha, located about 10 kilometers from Karabakh's seat, Khankendi (Stepanakert), was seen as a strategic win for Azerbaijan because of its hilltop position. 

Azerbaijani servicemen stand guard before Azerbaijani and Turkish flags at a checkpoint in the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Hadrut on November 25, 2020. Azerbaijani prosecutors will investigate a video, widely distributed on social media, that allegedly showed Azerbaijani forces' earlier execution of two ethnic Armenian men in Hadrut, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's senior foreign-policy aide Hikmat Hajiyev told PBS Newshour, a U.S. TV news program, on November 30, 2020. 

Armenian intellectuals march to the Russian Embassy in Yerevan on November 29, 2020 to demand Russia's help in locating missing Armenian soldiers and to call for Azerbaijan to return all prisoners. Petitions also have been made to the French and U.S. embassies.

Ordinary Azerbaijanis also have been struggling to receive information from their defense ministry about the status of missing relatives. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has underlined that Russian peacekeepers are assigned to facilitate the exchange of bodies and prisoners, but noted on December 1, 2020 the need for an exact list of who is missing.
 

Atop a hill near the village of Charektar, not far from Azerbaijan's newly regained Kalbacar district, an ethnic Armenian soldier keeps watch next to the flag of breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh. Ethnic Armenian separatists still run Karabakah's de facto government despite the loss of large amounts of area territory to Azerbaijani forces.