[e] By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of the enclave, in addition to surrounding Azerbaijani territories, most notably the Lachin corridor – a mountain pass that links Nagorno-Karabakh with mainland Armenia.

Amid the dissolution of the Russian Empire in November 1917 and seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the three main ethnic groups of the South Caucasus, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians, struggled to come to an agreement on the nature of political government in the region.

[43] Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, forces led by Armenian general Andranik Ozanian entered Karabakh and made for the regional capital of Shusha in December 1918 when they were stopped by newly arrived British troops.

The British commander suggested Andranik desist from marching on to Shusha and allow Armenia's and Azerbaijan's territorial disputes be left to the diplomats meeting at the forthcoming Paris Peace Conference.

The British in the meantime decided to appoint Khosrov bey Sultanov, an Azerbaijani statesman, as provisional governor, but insisted that all sides await the decision made at the peace conference.

Codenamed Operation Ring, Soviet forces, acting in conjunction with the local Azerbaijani OMON, entered villages in the Shahumyan region and began to forcibly expel their Armenian inhabitants.

[68] According to the Moscow-based Human Rights organization Memorial, at the same time, as a result of attacks by Armenian armed forces, several thousand residents of Azerbaijani villages in the former Shahumian, Hadrut, Martakert, Askeran and Martuni rayons of Azerbaijan left their homes.

During the Cold War, Soviet military doctrine for the defense of the Caucasus had outlined a strategy where Armenia would become a combat zone in the event that NATO member Turkey invaded from the west.

Many styled themselves in the mold of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Armenian revolutionary figures, such as Andranik Ozanian and Garegin Nzhdeh, who had fought against the Ottoman Empire and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

[80] Insubordination was common, as many men simply chose not to show up, looted the belongings of dead soldiers, and sold supplies, such as diesel oil intended for armoured vehicles, on the black market.

Women were allowed to enlist in the Nagorno-Karabakh military, sometimes taking part in the fighting but mainly serving in auxiliary roles such as providing first-aid and evacuating wounded men from the battlefield.

[9][83] According to Washington post, who refers to unidentified diplomats, the Afghans started arriving in August 1993 after Azerbaijani Deputy Interior Minister Roshan Jivadov had visited Afghanistan and the deployment was approved by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

[89] The bombardment of Stepanakert and adjacent Armenian-held towns and villages during the blockade caused widespread destruction[90][91] and the Interior Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh claimed that 169 Armenians died between October 1991 and April 1992.

[105] A report published in 1992 by the human rights organization Helsinki Watch stated that their inquiry found that the Azerbaijani OMON and "the militia, still in uniform and some still carrying their guns, were interspersed with the masses of civilians" which may have been the reason why Armenian troops fired upon them.

[110] In the ensuing months after the capture of Khojaly, Azerbaijani commanders holding out in the region's last bastion of Shusha began a large-scale artillery bombardment with Grad rocket launchers against Stepanakert.

[123] In mid-1992, the CSCE (later to become the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), created the Minsk Group in Helsinki which comprised eleven nations and was co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States with the purpose of mediating a peace deal with Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan's military had grown more desperate and defence minister Gaziev and Huseynov's brigade turned to Russian help, a move which ran against Elchibey's policies and was construed as insubordination.

[80] On 30 April, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 822, co-sponsored by Turkey and Pakistan, demanding the immediate cessation of all hostilities and the withdrawal of all occupying forces from Kalbajar.

[133] Human Rights Watch concluded that during the Kalbajar offensive Armenian forces committed numerous violations of the rules of war, including the forcible exodus of a civilian population, indiscriminate fire, and taking of hostages.

Frustrated with what he felt was Elchibey's incompetence and demoted from his rank of colonel, his brigade advanced in early June from its base in Ganja toward Baku with the explicit aim of unseating the president.

By July, Armenian forces were seen preparing for to attack and capture Agdam, another district that fell outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the aim of widening a cordon that would keep towns and villages and their positions out of the range of Azerbaijani artillery.

[147] Azerbaijan's offensives grew more desperate as boys as young as 16, with little to no training, were recruited and sent to take part in ineffective human wave attacks (a tactic often compared to the one employed by Iran during the Iran–Iraq War).

"[149] A New York Times correspondent who visited the region in 1994 noted that, "In Stepanakert, it is impossible to find an able-bodied man – whether volunteer from Armenia or local resident – out of uniform.

As the final battles of the conflict took place near Shahumyan, in a series of brief engagements in Gulustan, Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomats met in the early part of 1994 to hammer out the details of the ceasefire.

One such proposal stipulated that as Armenian forces withdrew from the seven regions surrounding Karabakh, Azerbaijan would share some of its economic assets including profits from an oil pipeline that would go from Baku through Armenia to Turkey.

[169] The ramifications of the war were said to have played a part in the February 2004 murder of Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Markaryan who was hacked to death with an axe by his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ramil Safarov at a NATO training seminar in Budapest, Hungary.

[173] On 14 May 2008 thirty-nine countries from the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 62/243 which called for "the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan".

On the diplomatic front, President Ilham Aliyev repeated statements that Azerbaijan would resort to force, if necessary, to take the territories back;[178] concurrently, shooting incidents along the line of contact increased.

Emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union as nascent states and due to the near-immediate fighting, it was not until mid-1993 that Armenia and Azerbaijan became signatories of international law agreements, including the Geneva Conventions.

To a great extent, it's a celebration of violence: to advance, players must handle a variety of tasks, including shooting lots of Armenian enemies, rescuing a wounded Azerbaijani soldier, retrieving a document, and blowing up a building in the town of Shusha.