The Center for Armenian Research and Analysis (CARA) gathers and analyzes critical information on activities occurring in occupied Artsakh by state and non-state actors, and produces a weekly brief, with actionable data, to public and private stakeholders. Keeping Artsakh alive and in the public consciousness is part and parcel of CARA’s mission of providing clear and unfettered research and analysis pertaining to indigenous Armenian rights and cultural survival.

TOP ARTSAKH HEADLINES, SEPTEMBER 7-13, 2026

From Umbaki Prison: Davit Ishkhanyan Calls Baku’s Trials “Pure Medievalism” and Challenges Armenia’s Silent Ombudsman

Davit Ishkhanyan, the former Speaker of the Parliament of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Bureau, has released an audio message from Azerbaijan’s notorious Umbaki prison, where he is serving an illegal life sentence imposed after sham court proceedings in Baku. He rejected the claim by Azeri Human Rights Commissioner Sabina Aliyeva that Armenian hostages are held “in compliance with international law and human rights norms,” saying that basic living conditions matter far less than the systematic violation of prisoners’ legal rights.

Since August 22, 2025, contrived “artificial obstacles” have kept the men from granting power of attorney to lawyers in Armenia — obstruction that predates, and continued through, both the Baku Military Court’s February 5th verdict and the Baku Court of Appeal’s decision of August 6, 2026. To this day, neither the hostages, nor their lawyers, nor their families have been given either ruling or the indictments behind them. The verdicts and charges appear on no Azerbaijani court or government website — a secrecy he called “pure medievalism” — and the prisoners have no way to contact the Azeri Ombudsperson’s Office.

He also challenged Armenia’s Human Rights Defender, Anahit Manasyan, over her inaction and her failure to answer earlier appeals, and invited her to visit him and the other prisoners at Umbaki. Pointing out that all 19 Armenian captives hold Republic of Armenia passports, he called on Armenian state officials to “demonstrate dignity,” formally demand the trial documents, and expose the fabricated charges. The trials, he said, have become “a complete fiasco for Azerbaijan’s judicial system.”

The Pashinyan regime knows these men are Armenian citizens, yet it has still not demanded their case files among other basic actions any government would take for its citizens abused and held captive in a foreign prison.. (Source: Asbarez Article)

Vardanyan’s Wife Asks to Go to Baku as Pashinyan’s Party Warns Against Damaging Azerbaijan’s “Reputation”

Veronika Zonabend, the wife of former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, has publicly asked Alen Simonyan, Speaker of the Armenian Parliament and head of national security, to take her with him if he makes an official visit to Baku. Azerbaijani forces seized Ruben Vardanyan during the September 2023 assault on Artsakh, and after a year-long sham trial he was given an illegal 20-year sentence.

Zonabend asked the Armenian government to support an all-female humanitarian delegation, made up of non-Armenian women activists and relatives of the captives, to visit the hostages and see how they are being held and treated. Together with attorney Siranush Sahakyan, she met with Armenian Foreign Ministry representatives and asked the Ministry to provide consular services through a third country and to arrange family visits. This is an urgent matter since the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was forced to suspend its work in Azerbaijan since last year. Simonyan claims to have  discussed “frameworks” for detained and missing persons with Aliyev adviser Hikmet Hajiyev, but the Armenian government has not said whether it will back Zonabend’s initiative.

At an extraordinary meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, Civil Contract MP Maria Karapetyan argued that the hostages issue should be discussed in a “calm tone” that would “avoid damaging Azerbaijan’s international reputation,” supposedly to ease their return. When Strong Armenia MP Suzanna Avetisyan pressed her on what was being done to free them, Karapetyan claimed the issue “is raised at every international meeting.” She warned against “minor concessions,” such as Zonabend’s request for family visits, arguing they would let Baku “normalize the situation” without releasing anyone. The committee then elected Karapetyan its deputy chair by a vote of 4 to 3.

Former Armenian lawmaker Naira Zohrabyan sharply condemned the approach. She criticized Karapetyan for worrying about how Azerbaijan is perceived, questioned her commitment to Armenia’s own citizens, and pointed out that Karapetyan had once attended an Azerbaijani Novruz celebration. Zohrabyan argued that Ilham Aliyev routinely brushes aside international human rights bodies, so there is no point in Armenians protecting Baku’s global image. She attributed these conciliatory views to the not-so-civil civil society backgrounds and purported “peace-building” work of many ruling party members. Whether claims that these lawmakers have been and are acting under foreign state mandate and influence, she noted that they sincerely hold these beliefs. Sincere or not, the effect is the same: a policy that treats Baku’s image as a priority alongside its own citizens’ freedom.

To the ruling party of the Pashinyan regime, a hostage’s wife is a bigger problem than her husband’s jailers. This is a Baku-centric peace agreement in practice. (Sources: Asbarez Article, Armenian Report Article, Armenian Report Article)

Armenia’s President Puts the 2020 War Dead at 4,800, Nearly a Thousand More Than the Official Count

On a visit to the Czech Republic, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan said Armenia lost 4,800 people in the 44-day Second Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War of 2020. His figure is 967 higher than the official count just released by Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which lists 3,833 dead (3,755 servicemen and 78 civilians) and 191 people still missing (172 servicemen and 19 civilians).f

The toll has long been politically sensitive: opposition figures often cite about 5,000 deaths, while government officials accuse them of exaggerating. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan denies hiding anything and points to the database of the Insurance Foundation for Servicemen. That database only covers compensation cases and leaves out civilians and victims with no eligible relatives. Armenia appears never to have published a single complete list of its war dead.

When a President and his own Investigative Committee differ by nearly a thousand lives, the state is (poorly) managing its record of the dead, not keeping it. (Sources: Armenian Report Article, Massis Post Article)

AzerGold Begins Blasting at the Sotk Gold Mine on Armenia’s Border With Occupied Karvachar

Azerbaijan’s state-owned mining company, AzerGold, has begun its first drilling and blasting at the Sotk gold mine (Azeri “Soyudlu,” also known as the “Zod” deposit). The deposit straddles the border between Armenia’s Gegharkunik province and occupied Karvachar (Azeri “Kalbajar”), which Azerbaijan seized after the so-called 2020 war. Nikol Pashinyan has acknowledged that the mine lies partly in Armenia and partly in Azerbaijan.

AzerGold claims 1.03 million ounces of recoverable gold under the JORC standard, based on 18,000 meters of drilling, and is planning a processing plant. It employs 236 workers and expects about 700 jobs by 2029 and more than 1,300 at full production.

The Armenian side, operated by GeoProMining, was made unsafe by Azeri border incursions from May 2021 and by artillery and drone attacks in September 2022 and September 2023. By spring 2023, open-pit mining there was halted because of cross-border fire, and more than 700 employees were sent on unpaid leave. AzerGold describes Armenian mining in Karvachar before 2020 as “illegal mining” during an “occupation,” though it has not claimed that its current work extends into sovereign Armenian territory.

Azerbaijan shelled the Armenian side of the mine until work stopped, and now blasts the side it seized. Calling Armenian mining in Armenian Karvachar “illegal” turns the truth upside down. (Sources: Armenian Report Article, Turkiye Today Article)

An EU-Funded Portal Offers Artsakh’s Displaced Answers on Housing, Jobs, and Documents

The new Parzorenk Portal (www.parzorenk.am) in Armenia aims to help what its sponsors call “people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh.” It was developed under the European Union-funded “Human Rights for and with Refugees” program, run jointly by the Democracy Development Foundation, the Estonian Refugee Council, the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women, and Commit Global. It answers common questions in plain language about housing, jobs, replacing lost documents, and social support.

The help is welcome, but these are more than 150,000 forcibly displaced, ethnically cleansed indigenous Armenians of Artsakh, and the one right such a portal never lists is their right of return. (Sources: Press Release, Facebook Post)

Pashinyan Claims Karki (Tigranashen) “Lies Outside Armenia” and Calls Any Claims to It, “Inciting Conflict”

According to the Azeri outlet AzerNews, Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has been quoted as saying that the village of Tigranashen (Azeri Karki) and other enclaves are not part of Armenia’s internationally recognized territory of 29,743 square kilometers. Answering opposition members who oppose handing over the Armenian village, Pashinyan alleged that calling Karki Armenian land would push Armenia’s claims beyond recognized limits and amount to inciting renewed conflict. He added that the enclave of Artsvashen (Azeri “Bashkend”) does fall within Armenia’s recognized borders. He claimed “no formal agreement has been reached yet” and that his task is to purportedly “reduce tensions.”

Once again, the Armenian who defends Armenian land is cast as the troublemaker, a false equivalence that Azeri state media is happy to repeat. (Source: AzerNews Article)

“On the Ground” in Occupied Artsakh

Baku Climate Action Week: Occupied Artsakh Becomes Azerbaijan’s Test Site for Power, Telecom, and Water Projects

At the so-called Baku Climate Action Week 2026 (BCAW 2026), three Azeri officials presented occupied Artsakh as a testing ground. On September 7th, Deputy Energy Minister Elnur Soltanov said new power distribution technology is being tested there before a nationwide rollout. The grid has supposedly been “redesigned” to step down directly from 35 kV to 0.4 kV, skipping stages used elsewhere, to cut energy losses.

On September 8th, Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Hasanov claimed that more than 35 solar-powered mobile base stations are operating in occupied Artsakh. The same day, Khayyam Mammadov, deputy head of the Azerbaijan State Water Resources Agency, announced the “construction and reconstruction” of the Mataghis (Azeri “Sugovushan”), Hakari, Aghavno (Azeri “Zabukh”), and Kondalanchay reservoirs, presented as flood control and water supply.

This is not ordinary civilian development. A new grid, telecom network, and reservoirs in  emptied indigenous Armenian land are permanent infrastructure for Azerbaijan’s “Settlers Offensive” and for Turkish and Azeri military plans in the region. (Sources: Soltanov Comments, Hasanov Comments, Reservoir Construction)

ANAMA Claims “One Million Mines” as an Azeri Man Is Maimed in Occupied Dashushen

On September 8th, Vugar Suleymanov, head of Azerbaijan’s mine action agency ANAMA, told a Baku forum that 438 people have been hurt by mines and explosives since the 2020 war, 73 of them fatally. He claimed that “over 1 million mines” were laid across occupied Artsakh, blocking construction, farming, and the “return of the population.” ANAMA and its partners claim to have cleared 300,565 hectares and destroyed 261,705 mines and explosive devices. The agency says most of the cleared land went to agriculture (132,447 hectares) and housing (71,202), with 31,037 hectares for “early warning systems.”

On September 10th, a mine exploded in occupied Dashushen (Azeri “Dashkend”), in occupied Ivanyan (Azeri “Khojaly”), and Anar Hasanov, born in 1990, lost his left foot at the ankle. After treatment in occupied Stepanakert and surgery in Barda, he remains in critical condition.

These figures come from Baku alone and cannot be verified. They present the scene of genocide as a “humanitarian theater” and pave the way for settlers. The land set aside for “early warning systems” is military ground. (Sources: ANAMA Report, Mine Explosion)

Occupation Culture: Baku Recruits Children for Art Classes and Says Mines Block Its “Inventory” of 130 Monuments

On September 9th, the Azeri Ministry of Culture opened online applications, through its MyCulture platform, for children’s art classes in occupied Stepanakert, occupied Shushi, occupied Berdzor (Azeri “Lachin”), occupied Karvachar, occupied Jrakan (Azeri “Jabrayil”), and occupied Kovsakan (Azeri “Zangilan”).

On September 10th, Sabina Hajiyeva, head of Azerbaijan’s so-called State Service for Protection, Development and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, said an “inventory” of 130 (Azeri?) cultural monuments in occupied Artsakh is still unfinished because of landmines. She described a so-called “recovery plan” that combines “smart villages,” modern towns, and green energy to settle what she called “internally displaced persons.”

This is part and parcel of a greater “Settlers Offensiv” developed and deployed by Azeri state structures, military personnel,  and special units based on Israeli algorithms and templates. These plans include everything from infrastructure, education, hospitals, and more to support Azeri Turkish and, in some areas, Israeli paramilitary and intelligence designs for the region.

“Housing is not enough,” Hajiyeva claimed,  “residents also need cultural heritage to feel truly at home.”

Art classes for settler children and a state “inventory” of monuments in a land whose Armenian heritage is being destroyed are both cultural whitewashing. Occupied Armenian Nakhichevan, where the ancient Armenian cemetery of Djulfa and all things Armenian were wiped out, shows where this path leads. (Sources: Art Education in Occupied Artsakh, Cultural Monuments)

The “Settlers Offensive” Advances: 154 More Settlers Moved Into Occupied Jrakan

On September 10th, under Azerbaijan’s illegal “Great Return” program, 25 settler families (154 people) were moved into the village of Shukurbeyli (Azeri name) in occupied Jrakan and handed keys to new homes. The handover ceremony, held on the orders of Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev, was attended by officials from his Special Representative’s office and the Azeri State Committee for Affairs of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. The new arrivals thanked Aliyev and First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva and honored the Azerbaijani Army.

Family by family, the “Settlers Offensive,” which experts say draws on Israeli models, is filling land emptied of more than 150,000 forcibly displaced, ethnically cleansed indigenous Armenians of Artsakh. (Source: Relocation to Occupied Jrakan)

Foreign Interests and Actions in Occupied Artsakh

An Azeri Diplomat Uses The Guardian to Recast Ethnic Cleansing as a Story of Azeri Suffering

On September 8th, Gunel Salimova, an adviser at the Azerbaijani Embassy in the UK, published a letter in The Guardian about a film on the conflict, accusing it of a “chauvinistic position that distorts real-world conditions.” She claimed that “fair coverage” must focus on “the humanitarian and social consequences of occupation,” the “tragedies suffered by the Azerbaijani population,” and the danger of landmines. She said nothing of the war’s real outcome: the ethnic cleansing of every Armenian in Artsakh.

Salimova repeated Baku’s line that the conflict began with “Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijani territories,” ignoring the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh and their right to self-defense. She wrote that Azerbaijan “restored its territorial integrity in 2020,” a polite name for a war of conquest that Baku completed in 2023 with a blockade and a forced deportation. With Armenian hostages still held in Baku and Armenian land still occupied, she described the situation as “steady progress toward a durable peace,” pointing to border commissions, “confidence-building measures,” trade, transit, and “transformative connectivity projects.”

Those “connectivity projects” are the routes across Syunik demanded by Azerbaijan, Turkey, Israel, and Western powers, a cover for Turkish and Azeri military expansion. (Source: Salimova Response)

Occupation Goods: A Textile Factory in Occupied Ivanyan Begins Exporting to Georgia and Moldova

On September 8th, Karabakh Textile Evi LLC, a factory in occupied Ivanyan that Ilham Aliyev opened on May 28th, began exporting to Georgia and Moldova. Founded by Rizvan Mammadov, the company makes about 200 products, such as bed linen and towels, turns out around 1 million items a year, and sells about 75% inside Azerbaijan. Most of its 105 workers are settlers brought to occupied Ivanyan and occupied Akna (Azeri “Aghdam”) under the “Great Return” colonial settler program. The company plans to grow to 200 employees and to start making clothing, which would supposedly add 100 more jobs.

Buyers of goods made by settlers on land cleared of its indigenous Armenian people are not neutral trading partners; they are taking part in the economy of genocide. (Source: Caspian Post Article)

A Washington Examiner Journalist Tours Occupied Artsakh as the Occupier’s Guest

Brady Knox, an American journalist with the *Washington Examiner, was taken on a tour of Aygestan (Azeri “Ballıca”) in occupied Ivanyan and the Karkijahan settlement in occupied Stepanakert. There he met with people whom Azeri officials described as “former internally displaced persons.” Officials from the Azeri agency responsible for construction in occupied Stepanakert, occupied Martakert (Azeri “Aghdara”), and occupied Ivanyan briefed him on so-called “restoration” work and on the government’s “relocation program.”

A guided visit to illegal settlements, narrated by the settlers and their officials, is not independent reporting. It is access journalism on Baku’s terms. (Source: US Journalist Visits Occupied Artsakh)

The United Nations Promises to “Align” Its Work With Baku’s Plans for Occupied Artsakh

On September 9th, Dmytro Shlapachenko, the UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan, announced that the United Nations will expand its projects supporting the so-called “restoration, reconstruction, and revitalization” of occupied Artsakh, in “close alignment” with the Azerbaijani government’s investments. A UN delegation will soon tour the territory to study “local needs.” UN agency heads also plan to mark UN Day by meeting students and officials at what was once Artsakh State University, which now carries the Azeri occupation name “Qarabakh University,” to review progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

By aligning with Baku’s priorities in an ethnically cleansed territory, the UN is supporting a colonial settlement program and genocide. The announcement never mentions the more than 150,000 indigenous Armenians whose homes these were. (Source: UN Visit to Occupied Artsakh)

Clerics From Turkey, Georgia, and Iraq Tour Occupied Artsakh’s Mosques While Armenian Churches Go Unmentioned and are Destroyed

On September 9th, a delegation of religious figures of Azerbaijani origin from Turkey, Georgia, and Iraq visited occupied Artsakh. Speaking in occupied Stepanakert, Aziz Muhammad, a cleric from Kirkuk, said the group had come to “share in the joy of ‘liberation.'” After visiting mosques in occupied Shushi, he claimed to have seen the results of “looting,” but said he was encouraged by how quickly the region is being “restored.”

The delegation also visited Martyrs’ Alley and the Juma Mosque in occupied Akna, where their Azeri hosts claimed that Armenians had vandalized cemeteries, monuments, and religious sites, and that the mosque had been “used to keep pigs” before its “full renovation.” After viewing before-and-after photographs, they prayed at the mosque, calling what they heard “one of the most tragic events in world history.”

The tour ignored the Armenian churches, cemeteries, and khachkars that Azerbaijan is destroying in the same land, whose Christian people were ethnically cleansed. That is the perpetrator accusing the victim. (Sources: Muhammad Comments, Religious Delegation Visit to Occupied Artsakh)

South Korea’s KOICA Commits $5.5 Million to Water Systems in Occupied Artsakh

On September 10th, South Korean Ambassador Kang Kym-gu announced that the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) will spend $5.5 million between 2026 and 2030 to restore kahrizes, the traditional underground channels that bring groundwater to the surface, in occupied Artsakh. The project, run with the Azerbaijan State Water Resources Agency, was presented as support for the “reconstruction and development” of the territory.

Seoul’s money will bring water to settlers on land cleared of its indigenous people. Seoul is not funding neutral infrastructure — it is subsidizing the settlement of ethnically cleansed  Armenian land. (Source: KOICA Restoration Project)

The Center for Armenian Research and Analysis (CARA) is a trans-national research institute that provides investigative, analytic, and informational resources to public and private entities across the Armenian experiential spectrum.