Armenia today accused Azerbaijan of preparing a “military provocation» massing Azeri military forces along the border between these two rival Caucasian countries and near the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan expresses its intention to launch a new military provocation against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

“The military and political situation in our region has clearly worsened,” he said at a government meeting in Yerevan.

On his part, the Azeri Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced a “new false political strategy».

“Armenia must abandon its territorial claims against Azerbaijan, end military-political provocations and stop creating obstacles to the peace process,” Baku said.

The new escalation of rhetoric comes ahead of early elections tomorrow, Saturday, for the leader of the contested region.

Joint military high schools of Armenia and US peacekeepers are also scheduled to take place in a few days. The Kremlin denounced these high schools earlier today stressing that they will undermine stability in the Caucasus.

Armenians accuse Moscow and Russian peacekeepers of failing to fulfill their missionallowing Azerbaijan to cut off a key enclave supply route.

Yerevan accuses Baku of blocking supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh since Decemberthat it has imposed a blockade on a strategically important road, the Lachine Corridor, causing major shortages and a “humanitarian crisis”.

Baku responds that it has installed a barricade at the entrance to the road for security reasons and stresses that transport can continue unimpeded.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been involved in two wars, in the 1990s and 2020s, over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azeri territory but inhabited mainly by Armenians.

Tension has escalated in recent months, with armed incidents occurring regularly along the border.