[11] The offensive occurred in the midst of an escalating crisis caused by Azerbaijani Armed Forces blockading Artsakh, which has resulted in significant scarcities of essential supplies such as food, medicine, and other goods in the affected region.

[70][71] Two weeks before the clashes, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued a report stating that there was "alarming evidence that President [Ilham] Aliyev may be planning a military assault on Artsakh in the very near future."

The Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense claimed to be undertaking "local anti-terrorist activities" and cited land mines allegedly planted by Armenians killing two Azerbaijani civilians and four police officers as a pretext for the offensive.

[110][111] According to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense, several peacekeepers were killed near the village of Chankatagh in Tartar District after their vehicle was attacked [ru] while they were returning from an observation post.

[112][113][114] Azerbaijani official Elin Suleymanov admitted that Azeri forces had killed the peacekeepers, calling it an accident, expressed condolences to Russia, and vowed to launch a probe into what happened.

[138] Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said some refugees died in transit due to exhaustion brought about by malnutrition, the lack of medicines and the travel time which took up to 40 hours.

[161][162] According to the Artsakhi delegation, the negotiations stalled due to a "whole host of questions", but specifically when they requested security guarantees that the Azerbaijani government would not force ethnic Armenians to leave the Nagorno-Karabakh region, however, both sides agreed on the cessation of military action.

[165] On 22 September, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, stated that his government would ensure that civilians can travel safely in their own vehicles on roads that connect Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

[171] According to Armenian journalist Tatul Hakobyan, a meeting between the head of State Security Service of Azerbaijan, Ali Naghiyev, and Artsakh's president Samvel Shahramanyan took place in Shusha.

[201] On 22 September, Artsakhi government spokesperson Armine Hayrapetyan told Agence-France Presse that Azerbaijani forces had positioned themselves around Stepanakert, prompting residents to hide in basements for fear of killings.

[213] Other countries and international organizations that have provided humanitarian assistance to civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh and to ethnic Armenians that have fled the region include Argentina,[214] Australia,[215] Canada,[216] the Czech Republic,[217] Denmark,[218] the European Union,[219] France,[220] Greece,[221] Hungary,[222] Japan,[223] Iran,[224] Italy,[225] Norway,[226] Poland,[227] Spain,[228] Sweden,[229] Switzerland,[230] and the United Kingdom.

[233][234] On 26 September, a meeting between Armen Grigoryan, head of Armenia's Security Council and Hikmat Hajiyev, Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan, was hosted by the European Union in Brussels.

On the same day, Armenia formally requested the International Court of Justice to order Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops from civilian areas of Nagorno-Karabakh to ensure safe access by UN personnel.

[254] On 7 December, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to hold a prisoner exchange and move towards normalising relations, stating in a joint statement their agreement to seize "a historical chance to achieve a long-awaited peace in the region".

There are various indicators that Azerbaijan possesses genocidal intent: President Aliyev's public statements, his regime's openly Armenophobic practices and noncompliance with the International Court of Justice orders to end the blockade.

"[262] Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, commented on Azerbaijan's ongoing nine-month long blockade of the region: "Armenians fear that this is a prelude to an Azerbaijani attempt to fully drive them all out of their homeland.

In January 2024, New Lines investigated these reports using Planet Labs satellite imagery and discovered a large and unfinished complex in a remote area of the Aghdam District that had been recently built.

Although the government claimed that the move to create additional guarantees for Armenia in response to Azerbaijani aggression, it was also seen as a sign of worsening relations with Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, is wanted by the court on charges of war crimes in the invasion of Ukraine.

[282][283][284] In Lebanon, firecrackers were thrown at the Azerbaijani embassy in the Ein Aar suburb of Beirut during a protest by Lebanese Armenians on 28 September, prompting riot police to disperse them with tear gas.

[274] Speaking at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City on 23 September, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the Armenian leadership of adding "fuel to the fire", referring to the conflict, and reiterated that agreements made following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 stated that the existing borders of its former constituent republics were inviolable, hereby recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

[295] On 21 September, Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy released a statement which condemned the military operation by Azerbaijan against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and deplored the casualties and loss of life caused by the offensive.

[300] The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen condemned "the military operation by Azerbaijan against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and reaffirmed the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Armenia".

Testimonies provided to the Commissioner by Karabakh Armenians reveal a deep-rooted fear for their lives and future amid armed conflicts, exacerbated by Azerbaijan's control resulting from unresolved past atrocities and ongoing intimidation.

Feeling abandoned by all parties and with no security guarantees, the heightened vulnerability experienced during the blockade, and the unexpected reopening of the Lachin corridor in late September 2023, prompted Karabakh Armenians to believe that leaving the region immediately was the only option available to ensure their survival and future well-being.

[306][307] According to leaked documents, Belarus provided advanced weaponry to Azerbaijan, including artillery and drones, that were used in this conflict, prompting Armenian withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization in June 2024.

Weeks before the offensive, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats.

Citing the 1948 Genocide Convention, he stated that Azerbaijan was purposely inflicting living conditions to physically destroy a specific group by blocking the Lachin corridor, and was proceeding to kill and cause "serious bodily and mental harm".

[34] Thomas de Waal said that Azerbaijan was emboldened to start its offensive during a downturn in relations between Russia and Armenia, and the loss of the Russian peacekeeping force's "best commanders" to the invasion of Ukraine.

[360] Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski coined the term "Azerbaijanization" to describe NATO member countries' tendency to ignore violations of human rights when it suits their interests.

[362] Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at the University of Bremen, attributed the speed of Azerbaijan's victory to its demographic superiority over both Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and the failure of the latter to strengthen their defenses and strategies against the modernized Azerbaijani military.