Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of killing 21 people and injuring dozens in a missile strike near the disputed region.

Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of killing 21 people and injuring dozens in a missile strike near the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

On Wednesday, Armenia immediately denied continuing the attack, the second in two days Azerbaijan said civilians had been killed in the Barda district near the front line.

Yerevan blamed Azerbaijani forces for a deadly new strike in the civilian area of ​​Nagorno-Karabakh, as both sides claimed that others were targeting civilians after weeks of horrific clashes.

Meanwhile, the Rhea Novosti news agency reported that Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashinyan had confirmed the deployment of Russian border guards on the Armenian border with Nagorno-Karabakh.

“There’s nothing special about it,” Pashinyan said. “Russian border guards are stationed on the Armenian border with Turkey and Iran … Due to the recent events, the Russian border guards are also stationed on the southeastern and southwestern borders of Armenia.”

Smarch missiles

Wednesday’s attacks came despite the U.S.-broker agreeing a ceasefire over the weekend, trying to break a third ceasefire just minutes after it took effect.

Hikmet Hazayev, an aide to the Azerbaijani president, said Armenian forces had fired commemorative missiles at Burma, accusing them of using cluster attacks “to cause excessive casualties among civilians”.

The prosecutor general’s office said the strike hit a populated area and a shopping district, killing 21 civilians and injuring at least 700.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s Defense Ministry has confirmed that the occupation of the strategic town of Gubadli, between the Azerbaijani enclave and the Iranian border, is a military gain that could make a diplomatic solution more difficult.

Nagarono-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians. About 30,000 people were killed in the war in the region in 1991-94.

Azerbaijan rejects any solution that would put the Armenians in control of the enclave, which it considers to be illegally occupied.

Armenia considers the region part of its historic homeland and says its people need protection.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Ministry of Defense has recorded 1,068 military deaths since the start of the war on September 2.

Azerbaijan did not disclose its military casualties. Russia estimates the death toll at five thousand