SYUNIK, Armenia — The ruined buildings are easy to miss if you’re not looking for them.

Degraded and dismantled, the slight remains of perhaps a dozen houses are clustered tightly between the river and the highway, about 10 kilometers south of the city of Goris, in southern Armenia.

But this is not Armenia. This is the village of Eyvazli, in Azerbaijan. And while there’s not much of it left, it now sits at the heart of the latest tensions between the two historical rivals and the uncertainties of the new border demarcation process here.

The southern Armenian province of Syunik, which hosts Goris, forms a tendril of land stretching down from central Armenia to border Iran. On both sides, it is flanked by Azerbaijan — the Azerbaijani exclave of Naxcivan to the west and the Azerbaijani provinces (rayons) of Qubadli and Zangilan to the east.

For the past 27 years, the latter border did not exist in reality. Qubadli and Zangilan were captured by Karabakh Armenian forces in 1993 and administered by Stepanakert until three months ago, when Azerbaijani forces retook them during a sweeping offensive.

A Russia-brokered cease-fire ended 44 days of fresh fighting in the long-simmering war over Azerbaijan’s territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions on November 10, enshrining Azerbaijani control over the two. Now, for the first time since the border between then-Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan was drawn nearly a century ago, it is being officially demarcated.

A glance at the map makes the problem immediately evident.

The border — which was never meant to be international, but merely a near-meaningless divider between two Soviet provinces — zigzags haphazardly, cutting through settlements and key roads. The most important road in southern Armenia — the highway between Syunik’s two largest cities of Goris and Kapan — repeatedly crosses the official border, including at Eyvazli.

The unclear position of the actual border has already led to problems since the cease-fire cemented Azerbaijani control over much of the territory it lost nearly three decades ago, as local Armenian and Azerbaijani forces come face-to-face.

On December 13, reports emerged of a shoot-out between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in a village near Syunik’s provincial capital, Kapan.

Speaking to RFE/RL the next day, Kapan’s mayor describes the incident as Armenian “defenders” merely firing into the air to warn off several dozen approaching Azerbaijani soldiers.

“[The Azeris] didn’t shoot back,” Mayor Gevorg Parsian says.

Parsian’s city is itself affected by the border issue, lying within sight of the newly manned Azerbaijani border.

“The last neighborhood of Kapan is less than 1 kilometer from the border,” Parsian says. “We already feel under threat because of this.”

Kapan Mayor Gevorg Parsian, an Armenian, thinks the war in the 1990s started because “we were living too close to each other.”

Kapan’s airport is even closer. Disused since Soviet times, it has repeatedly been rumored to be reopening. The landing strip has clearly been repaved recently, and the terminal building is also freshly built.

Barely 100 meters separates the tarmac from the river that marks the border.

“The Azeris are already there, on the other side of the river,” Parsian says. “The new airport should be a major asset for Kapan, but it hardly feels safe now.”

The new frontier especially concerns residents here, given Kapan’s history. Over the course of 1992, during the first years of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the city was repeatedly shelled by Azerbaijani forces across the border.

The view from Davit Bek, in Armenia, toward the border with Azerbaijani-controlled territory, with Azerbaijani positions barely visible.

Fallout from the border issue and the discomfiting truce that capped the recent fighting have turned Syunik — or at least its mayors — into staunch critics of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

The mayors of Syunik’s five largest settlements — Kapan, Goris, Sisian, Meghri, and Kajaran — have all called for Pashinian’s resignation. During a planned visit to Syunik on December 21, local residents blocked the roads, forcing the prime minister’s entourage back to Yerevan.

Parsian, who has been one of Pashinian’s most strident critics, pins the blame for the recent defeat on the Armenian leader, who took power after leading street protests that fueled a “velvet revolution” in 2018.

“The war is connected with [Pashinian’s] failed policies — specifically, his foreign policy,” Parsian says, adding, “The support we have from the government [on the border issue] is also not enough.”

Their disappointment has led Kapan and other communities to seek the help of another protector: Russia.

In late November, Moscow announced that in addition to some 2,000 Russian troops already policing the cease-fire, it was sending 188 border guards to Armenia to help secure that country’s southeast border. Some of them are already on the ground around the Kapan-Goris highway.

“We are in contact with the Russians,” Parsian says. “They have promised us to maintain security.”

The partly destroyed home of Vorlik, a 72-year-old resident of Davit Bek, in Armenia, near the border with Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile, in another of Syunik’s villages, the border situation is equally tense and the direct effects of the recent fighting are still being felt.

Seventy-three-year-old Vorik, who asks that his last name not be published, points to a destroyed shed next to his house in Davit Bek.

It is about 5 kilometers as the crow flies from the Azeri town of Qubadli (Kubatli in Armenian), near the mutual border.

“They fired a shell that landed right here,” he says of his property coming under Azerbaijani artillery fire. “Many other houses in the village were also hit.”

A detachment of Armenian Army troops is present in the village, billeted in a house in its center. They arrived in early December, after having fought on the front lines in Cebrayil/Jrakan.

“The enemy is about a kilometer and a half from here,” an Armenian soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity, says as he gestures toward several small tents across a field that marks the border with Azerbaijan.

Unlike Syunik’s mayors, these men have no harsh words for the prime minister.

“This deal saved our friends,” the unit commander says when asked about the cease-fire agreement. “We fought the war in order for our people to live. Thank God, most of them still do.”

While major combat is over — at least for a while — the border demarcation has led to further losses and more uncertainty.

On January 4, a dozen homes in the village of Shurnukh, about 10 kilometers northwest of Davit Bek, were handed over after being found to lie on the Azerbaijani side of the newly defined border.

But not before they were set alight in scenes reminiscent of evacuations in Kelbacar/Karvachar and other parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that were ceded by other ethnic Armenians more than a month earlier.

For Mayor Parsian, the newly arriving Azerbaijanis on the border are an ominous sign, even if Russian border guards will also be coming.

“The war in the 1990s started because we were living too close to each other,” he says. “There were kidnappings, raids — that’s how it all started. If [Azeris] are again right next to us, I fear the situation will be repeated.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

TAGHAVARD, Nagorno-Karabakh — The war in Nagorno-Karabakh may be over, but the gunfights are not.

The village of Taghavard lies at the end of a winding road 45 minutes southeast of Stepanakert, the main city in Nagorno-Karabakh and the capital of the ethnic Armenians’ self-declared Republic of Artsakh.

Taghavard is a sprawling place that had about 1,300 inhabitants before the war started in September. The rickety village’s houses stretch out for 4 kilometers along either side of the main road that defines the hamlet.

Before one has traveled even half that distance, however, the tranquil rural scenery is interrupted.

The road is suddenly cut off by a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the “Artsakh Defense Army” (as the self-proclaimed republic’s armed forces are known), and a sign indicating a minefield ahead.

Just beyond the checkpoint lies the other half of the village — and the Azerbaijani soldiers who control it.

“On October 27, a huge number of Azerbaijani soldiers entered the village,” says Oleg Harutiunian, 61, the mayor of the village. “We couldn’t hold our positions. We had to pull back.”

Taghavard and its surroundings witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the war. The nearby town of Karmir Shuka changed hands multiple times, as Azerbaijani soldiers entered the settlement only to be pushed back by spirited counterattacks by the ethnic Armenians (the town is still in Armenian hands).

Hills just south of Taghavard that are held by Azerbaijani forces.

While Taghavard itself is nothing special, its position is: it lies astride the axis where Azerbaijani troops punched northwest towards Susa (Shushi in Armenian), the key central Karabakh city which overlooks Stepanakert. Susa’s capture on November 9 effectively marked the end of the war.

Harutiunian reckons this singular Azerbaijani focus — to take Susa — is what enabled Armenian forces to retain control of the half of Taghavard they still hold. “[Azerbaijan] didn’t want this village,” he says. “They just needed the road to Shushi.”

The corridor seized by Azerbaijani forces as part of their drive to Susa is indeed quite narrow. Near the entrance to Taghavard one can see an Azerbaijani camp, its blue-red-and-green flag waving conspicuously less than a kilometer away in the fields to the northwest.

‘I Could See My Own House On Fire’

The November 10 truce deal that officially ended the fighting has had little meaning for the people of Taghavard.

Harutiunian estimates the homes of some 600 of the village’s roughly 1,300 inhabitants are located in the Azerbaijani-held portion of the settlement. Many of them are likely no longer standing.

“[The Azerbaijanis] burned the houses after they entered [the village],” Harutiunian says. “From over here, I could see my own house on fire.”

The village head now lives in Stepanakert, from where he commutes to Taghavard daily to work on what’s left of the village.

Very few of Taghavard’s residents have been able to return. The only people visible on the road or at the village administration are men, volunteers in the local militia.

Oleg Harutiunian, the mayor of Taghavard

“Almost none of the women and children have been able to come back,” says Harutiunian. “How can they be safe? The Azerbaijanis are right there,” he says, pointing to a hillside barely 500 meters away. Two Azerbaijani soldiers are visible there, standing in front of a ruined building.

The danger Harutiunian speaks of is not speculative. Several times while talking during his interview, cracks of gunshot can be heard.

Ethnic Armenian soldiers in the village are billeted in an abandoned house near the checkpoint on the front line. In a brief conversation before their superiors arrive and forbid them from saying more, they confirm that the cease-fire is not holding here.

“The Azerbaijanis have been firing at us all day,” says Artur, 20. “We have not returned fire but we have suffered casualties.”

“It’s a sniper war now,” says another young soldier who does not want to give his name.

Russia’s peacekeeping contingent, stretched thin along a line of contact that extends for roughly 300 kilometers around the remainder of Armenian-held territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, is not present in Taghavard.

The Russians’ nearest position — a small checkpoint with a dozen soldiers and two BTR infantry fighting vehicles — is more than 5 kilometers away.

“The Russians aren’t here,” Harutiunian confirms. “I don’t know why. There is just the flag,” he says, gesturing to a Russian tricolor hanging across the middle of the no-man’s-land minefield that marks where Armenian control ends and the Azerbaijani presence begins.

Confusion reigns over where the lines of control throughout southern Karabakh are supposed to be.

The tripartite agreement signed on November 10 stipulates in its first clause that both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces “shall stop in their current positions.” But this has not stopped the more numerous and better equipped Azerbaijan troops from attempting to seize additional land.

On December 12, Azerbaijani troops attacked the villages of Hin Tagher (Kohne Taglar in Azeri) and Khtsaberd (Caylaqqala), two Armenian-held settlements about 30 kilometers south of Stepanakert that were not captured during the war. An estimated 73 ethnic Armenian servicemen were taken prisoner as a result, and the head of Hin Tagher later confirmed that Azerbaijan had taken control of the village.

Russian peacekeepers were not in the area before the attack. While a contingent of Russians later arrived and negotiations are ongoing over the final status of the villages, the incident poses a major challenge to the effectiveness of the Russian peacekeeping mission.

Harutiunian, meanwhile, remains confident that negotiations will resolve the situation in his village in Armenia’s favor.

“I talked to the head of the Martuni region,” he says, referring to the Artsakh “province” to which Taghavard belongs. “He is in close contact with the Russians and he assures me we will get the rest [of the village] back.”

If this does not occur and the village remains split, it is difficult to see how ethnic Armenian civilians will be able to return to it.

“Of course no one will live here with the enemy right there,” scoffs Harutiunian. “No one will return to Karmir Shuka either,” he adds, referring to the nearby town of 2,000 prewar inhabitants that was heavily damaged in the fighting.

Harutiunian’s remark is punctuated but yet another gunshot ringing out in the distance.

The village of Taghavard appears to merely be part of the latest front line in this more than 30-year old conflict.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.