Armenia stated Tuesday it is looking for Russian military assistance in the middle of fatal border clashes with Azerbaijan as Moscows forces are tied up in an expensive six-month dispute of their own in Ukraine.Armenia and Azerbaijan declared undefined casualties as they blamed each other for exchanges of fire around the objected to Nagorno-Karabakh area that started at about midnight regional time.

Yerevan later accused Baku of trying to advance inside Armenian area.

The enemy continues to utilize weapons, mortars, drones and large-caliber rifles in the directions of Vardenis, Sotk, Artanish, Ishkhanasar, Goris and Kapan, targeting both military and civilian facilities, the Armenian Defense Ministry stated in a declaration Tuesday.

Armenias security council, led by the Caucasus republics prime minister and president, collected to invoke a mutual support and cooperation treaty with Russia, which spells out joint defense and military support in case of aggressiveness towards signatories, the Armenian government said in a statement.

It was chosen to formally appeal to the Russian Federation in order to utilize the provisions of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, the declaration reads.It includes that Armenia will also rely on the Moscow-led security bloc of six former Soviet republics, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the UN Security Council for assistance.Russias state-run TASS news company reported early Tuesday that Armenia has actually currently sent the formal appeals.Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in addition to French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S.

State Secretary Antony Blinken.The flare-up in between regional enemies Armenia and Azerbaijan is the latest of a series of frequent reports of shootouts along their shared border given that the end of the 2020 war in between Yerevan and Baku over the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian officials have actually linked clashes to Russias intrusion of Ukraine and pro-government Azeri media seeking to challenge the 2,000-member Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Ukraine war has actually sustained rumors that Russia was withdrawing a minimum of part of its peacekeepers into Ukraine and added to an escalation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, where ceasefire infractions are common.Last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing among its soldiers in a border shootout.

In August, Azerbaijan said it had actually lost a soldier and the Karabakh army stated two of its troops had actually been eliminated and more than a dozen injured.The next-door neighbors battled 2 wars-- in the 1990s and in 2020-- over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijans Armenian-populated enclave.Six weeks of combating in the fall of 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.Under the offer, Armenia delivered swathes of area it had actually controlled for decades and Moscow released about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to manage the fragile truce.During EU-mediated talks in Brussels in May and April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accepted advance conversations on a future peace treaty.Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

The occurring conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.AFP contributed reporting.