[74][77] The war was marked by the deployment of drones, sensors, long-range heavy artillery[78] and missile strikes, as well as by state propaganda and the use of official social media accounts in online information warfare.

Azerbaijan rejected the request several times,[107] and ethnic violence began shortly thereafter with a series of pogroms between 1988 and 1990 against Armenians in Sumgait, Ganja and Baku,[108][109][110][111] and against Azerbaijanis in Gugark and Stepanakert.

[116] The 1994 Bishkek Protocol brought the fighting to an end and resulted in significant Armenian territorial gains: in addition to controlling most of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Republic of Artsakh also occupied the surrounding Azerbaijani-populated districts of Agdam, Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Kalbajar, Qubadli, Lachin and Zangilan.

[117] The terms of the Bishkek agreement produced a frozen conflict,[118] and long-standing international mediation attempts to create a peace process were initiated by the OSCE Minsk Group in 1994, with the interrupted Madrid Principles being the most recent iteration prior to the 2020 war.

Azerbaijani forces launched offensives toward Jabrayil and Füzuli, managing to break through the multi-layered Armenian/Artsakh defensive lines and recapture a stretch of territory held by Armenian troops as a buffer zone, but the fighting subsequently stalled.

[179] The next day, it postponed the trial of former President Robert Kocharyan and other former officials charged in the 2008 post-election unrest case, owing to one of the defendants, the former Defence Minister of Armenia, Seyran Ohanyan, going to Artsakh during the conflict.

[193] The National Assembly of Azerbaijan declared a curfew in Baku, Ganja, Goygol, Yevlakh and a number of districts from midnight on 28 September 2020,[194][195] under the Interior Minister, Vilayet Eyvazov.

[203] On 29 October 2020, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, issued a decree on the formation of temporary commandant's offices in the areas that the Azerbaijani forces seized control of during the conflict.

[242] Several outlets reported increased cases of COVID-19 in Nagorno-Karabakh, particularly the city of Stepanakert, where the population was forced to live in overcrowded bunkers, due to Azerbaijan artillery and drone strikes conflict.

[246] On 16 November 2020, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan reported 3,410 private houses, 512 civilian facilities, and 120 multi-storey residential buildings being damaged throughout the war.

On 14 October 2020, Azerbaijan stated it had further destroyed five T-72 tanks, three BM-21 Grad rocket launchers, one 9K33 Osa missile system, one BMP-2 vehicle, one KS-19 air defence gun, two D-30 howitzers and several Armenian army automobiles.

[253] BBC reporters confirmed the destruction of at least one tactical ballistic missile launcher in the vicinity of Vardenis, close to the border with Azerbaijan, and posted photo evidence in support of this information.

[260] UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that "indiscriminate attacks on populated areas anywhere, including in Stepanakert, Ganja and other localities in and around the immediate Nagorno-Karabakh zone of conflict, were totally unacceptable".

[266] Shortly after the news about the signing the ceasefire agreement broke in the early hours of 10 November violent protests erupted in Armenia against Nikol Pashinyan, claiming he was a "traitor" for having accepted the peace deal.

[274] After the ceasefire agreement was signed, President Armen Sarksyan held a meeting with Karekin II, where they both made a call to declare 22 November as the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes who fell for the Defense of the Motherland in the Artsakh Liberation War.

[277] On 12 December, Azerbaijani trucks, accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers, entered David Bek in Syunik Province of Armenia to pick up the bodies of fallen soldiers.

[299] A unity prayer was held at the Heydar Mosque in Baku in memory of those killed in the war, and Shaykh al-Islām Allahshukur Pashazadeh, chairman of the Religious Council of the Caucasus, said that "Sunnis and Shiites prayed for the souls of our martyrs together."

[112][113][114][115] In a 27 September 2020 interview, regional expert Thomas de Waal said that it was highly unlikely that hostilities were initiated by the Armenian side, as they were already in possession of the disputed territory and were incentivised to normalise the status quo, while "for various reasons, Azerbaijan calculate[d] that military action w[ould] win it something".

[326] In late October, massed Russian airstrikes targeted a training camp for Failaq al-Sham, one of the largest Turkish-backed Sunni Islamist rebel groups in Syria's Idlib province, killing 78 militants in an act widely interpreted as a warning shot to Ankara over the latter's involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh fighting.

[326] The transport communications stipulated by the ceasefire agreement, linking Nakhchivan and the main part of Azerbaijan through Armenia, would provide Turkey with trade access to Central Asia and China's Belt and Road Initiative.

[344] In a piece published by the Russian broadsheet Vedomosti on 10 November, Konstantin Makienko, a member of the State Duma Defence Committee, wrote that the geopolitical consequences of the war were "catastrophic" not only for Armenia but for Russia as well, because Moscow's influence in the Southern Caucasus had dwindled while "the prestige of a successful and feisty Turkey, contrariwise, had increased immensely".

[346] The relative success of Azerbaijan in meeting its strategic goals to gain control over Nagorno-Karabakh via the use of military force may have influenced the Russian decision to invade Ukraine in 2022.

[347] Azerbaijan's oil wealth allowed a consistently higher military budget than Armenia,[326] and it purchased advanced weapons systems from Israel, Russia and Turkey.

[132] Despite the similar size of both militaries, Azerbaijan possessed superior tanks, armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles,[135] and had also amassed a fleet of Turkish and Israeli drones.

[143] In the opinion of a Forbes magazine contributor, Azerbaijan managed to inflict a devastating and decisive defeat through adept usage of sophisticated military hardware which avoided bogging down in a costly war of attrition.

[349] The International Institute for Strategic Studies presented a summary of analyses by Russian military experts, who concluded that the Azerbaijani victory was not just a result of drone warfare and Turkish assistance, but could actually be attributed to a number of other factors, such as a more professional army with recent battlefield experience, employment by Armenia of Soviet-era tactics against the modern warfare waged by Azerbaijan, a strong national will to fight on part of Azerbaijan compared to irresolute Armenian leadership, and the Armenians believing their own propaganda and underestimating the enemy.

[352] Close air support was provided by specialised suicide drones such as the Israeli-made IAI Harop loitering munition, rendering tanks vulnerable and suggesting the need for changes to armoured warfare doctrine.

[374] On 9 October 2020, Armen Sarkissian demanded that international powers, particularly, the United States, Russia and NATO, do more to stop Turkey's involvement in the war and warned that Ankara is creating "another Syria in the Caucasus".

[378] On 27 September 2020, Azerbaijan accused Armenian forces of a "willful and deliberate" attack on the front line[379] and of targeting civilian areas, alleging a "gross violation of international humanitarian law".

[385] On 29 September 2020, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, said that Armenian control of the area and aggression had led to the destruction of infrastructure and mosques, caused the Khojaly massacre and resulted in cultural genocide, and was tantamount to state-backed Islamophobia and anti-Azerbaijani sentiment.