We have to go.
We’re not scared, and we don’t think about our life right now.
We think about our country.
That’s the only thing.
-You’re ready to die? -I’m ready.
Of course, I’m ready. Everybody is ready.
Everybody here is ready.
These Armenian Army reservists are heading to the front line of
a fight they see as a threat to their very existence—
a dispute with Azerbaijan
over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nearly three decades of cross-border conflict between the two sides
turned into an all-out war in September.
Is this your younger brother or older brother?
Younger brother.
And you are also going to go to Nagorno-Karabakh?
-When are you going? -A few days.
Two or three days.
You’re fighting, your brother’s going to go fight,
your father’s fighting.
Isn’t your mother worried about you guys?
Aren’t you scared?
No, we aren’t scared. We aren’t scared.
We are very proud that we are going to protect our country.
We know how to fight against, you know?
And everybody here has served.
We are not scared about war.
We want peace for all over the world.
But if they try our lands or our cars or our families,
we will try to protect and we will protect.
What about the Azerbaijanis on the other side,
who might say the same thing?
We didn’t start this war,
but I think that they are going to repeat the genocide.
And that’s why here everybody is going to the army,
but they go because there is no choice.
For these young soldiers,
the 1915 genocide, in which Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians,
is still very much an open wound.
Now, Armenians are fighting to prevent Azerbaijan,
Turkey’s close ally, from taking control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
During the fall of the USSR,
the two former Soviet republics
fought a bloody war for the territory.
The fighting ended with a 1994 cease fire,
after more than 30,000 people were killed,
hundreds of thousands displaced,
and Armenian forces left in control of Nagorno-Karabakh
and surrounding areas.
Nearly every country in the world recognizes the territory
as part of Azerbaijan,
despite its majority ethnic Armenian population,
who want either independence or to join Armenia.
Azerbaijan’s president says his country won’t accept
anything short of the full withdrawal of Armenian forces from the area.
We have repeatedly said that
Nagorno-Karabakh has historically belonged to Azerbaijan.
I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
Just behind me is the border with Azerbaijan.
A lot of people are headed in the direction of Nagorno-Karabakh.
And all of the cars that are driving on this road
are driving with their lights off
because they’re scared that they’re going to be seen
by Azerbaijani soldiers on the other side of the border,
and possibly fired upon.
Two weeks into the war, and the destruction
in Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto capital, Stepanakert,
is already widespread.
So as you can see, these vehicles are severely damaged
by the shelling and the rocket attacks
that have been happening all day long.
There’s black smoke over in the distance.
It has been near constant bombardment of the city, Stepanakert,
since the morning.
Armo, a store owner in central Stepanakert,
says he narrowly avoided a rocket strike
that completely destroyed his neighbor’s home.
Everything here is destroyed. It’s broken.
Here...
Wow.
Over there, everything is broken.
If I was here, I wouldn’t have survived.
I would have been dead meat.
Without any bones. A meatball.
We have no electricity, no gas, no water, no bread.
It’s OK.
Anyway, we are alive.
We’re alive.
While there's been attacks on both sides,
oil-rich Azerbaijan purchased its sophisticated military technology,
including drones,
from Israel and Turkey,
that clearly give it the upper hand.
Azerbaijan doesn't report military casualties, but Armenia does,
and it says it’s lost more than 350 soldiers.
The fear of Azerbaijan retaking control of Nagorno-Karabakh
has also drawn in the Armenian diaspora.
Dr. Armen Hagopjanian is a surgeon
who flew from Los Angeles two days earlier.
What are the extent of the injuries you’re seeing
as a result of Azerbaijani attacks, here in the hospital?
Absolutely massive.
These are not a simple injury that these kids are suffering.
Those are 20-25-year-old kids that are going to defend their own.
They’re defending their own country,
and they’re being blown to pieces by 21st century mighty weapons.
I’m sure you have quite a comfortable life
as a surgeon working in Los Angeles.
Was it hard to leave that behind and come here to a war zone?
No, the hardest thing was just to explain to your parents,
to your wife, and to your kids that you have to come here
and help other kids.
That was the most difficult part.
What actually was--
OK, OK.
Alright.
This is a reality here.
Usually, we get a little siren
so we know we need to go into the bunker.
But sometimes the siren doesn’t work,
so we get the bomb before the siren.
But it’s OK, we’re getting used to it.
Getting used to the nonstop bombardment
means civilians are abandoning the streets
and taking cover underground
in some of the same shelters they built 30 years ago.
Wow, they’re demolishing everything.
Let’s go inside. They’re hitting.
How often are you hearing this sound these days?
Very often.
About [every] 30 minutes.
You’re not scared?
No.
Why not?
Because I’m a strong woman.
I was born [during] the first war,
and [with] my first words,
I said, “Go down. They are shooting.”
They are bombing.
Sona Hambardzumyan is a lawyer and university lecturer.
We have to go down.
When the war started,
she sent her nine-year-old son to be with relatives in Armenia.
But it’d be so easy for you to just get in the car now,
to escape this war, go to Yerevan with your son.
Why do you choose to stay?
I am Armenian. It’s the Armenianess, the Armenian spirit,
the Armenian blood that [Nagorno-Karabakh] has given me
that I need to uphold.
Please, after you.
Like Sona, Armine Aleksanyan grew up in this conflict.
She’s now the deputy foreign minister of Nagorno-Karabakh.
What do people here want?
People here want peace.
People here want to be able to live in their homes
in the way they want to live their lives.
We have to fight for the very right to exist.
If it’s as you say, why is the international community
almost unanimous in its refusal to recognize
the independence or the Armenian connection of Karabakh?
We have nothing to offer, I guess.
We don’t have the Azeri oil.
We don’t have the Azeri caviar.
We don’t use laundromats to bribe European politicians.
Azerbaijan has succeeded because it has got the resources
it has got the money,
and it can actually use the oil card to threaten some countries
by doing it.
Right now, Azerbaijan, the military is moving in on many fronts,
they’re bombing all of Karabakh.
What happens in the worst-case scenario for you
if they take control of this territory?
I don't really like answering hypothetical questions,
but I don’t even consider that question
because if I don’t think of it as something possible,
I will never give in.
And that’s the mindset of every single Karabakhi who lives here.
That’s why we’re still here, even though they’re attacking,
even though they want to kill us.
But we’re going to stay here.
As we prepared to leave, the bombing intensified.
The underground bunkers no longer felt safe,
and civilians began to flee en masse to Armenia.
Among those who left was Sona.
We met her again at her sister’s home,
one stop on her journey to Armenia’s capital, Yerevan.
Last time we met, a few nights ago,
you said that you would never leave.
What happened that made you finally decide you had to leave?
No shelter can save people from all that.
And no shelter—not in the sky nor on the ground—
can be enough shelter
to protect you.
When we were in the basement, lights went off,
rocket fire started— one, two, three, four—
and continued without interruption.
And it never stopped.
The children were hugging their mothers and
begging to be taken out of there
because those thick walls might fall on them.
My mother was silent with fear.
My father was getting older in front of my eyes.
I thought I had to leave that place.
I have to make them smile again.
Do you think that you will be able to go back to Stepanakert soon?
Yes.
Yes, I believe in that.
It might seem a little unbelievable, like a dream.
It might sound a little romantic,
but I am sure that even if there’s only land left,
we will return and build everything all over again and live there.