Azerbaijan is close to taking control of Nagorno-Karabakh

Things could have got much nastier, and they still might in the days and weeks ahead. On September 20th, a day after Azerbaijan launched an armed offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian enclave inside its borders, a ceasefire took hold. Under its terms, the region’s Armenian separatists agreed to surrender and disband, something Azerbaijan has insisted on for some time.The deal may have prevented a massacre on Europe’s doorstep; in a single day, Azerbaijan’s drones and bombs had reportedly killed at least 200 people across the region. Images showed Armenians hunkering down in basements as sirens sounded over Stepanakert, the regional capital. But the agreement, brokered by Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region three years ago, also appears to spell the end of the enclave’s semi-independent status. Thousands of Armenians have already abandoned their homes. Many more may decide to flee to Armenia.