Intense border fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenian forces has raised the risk of a new cycle of elevated combat, but military constraints on both sides, as well as geopolitical interests guiding Russian and Turkish policy, will likely keep the two countries’ decades-old conflict confined to established patterns. The current fighting near the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which started early on Sept. 27, follows months of atypically high levels of ceasefire violations between the two sides since a July 2020 skirmish in a different sector of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Drone strikes, artillery fire and the maneuvering of armored units occurred near several critical sectors of the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact, including the areas around Fuzuli, Terter, Vardenis and the Murovdag mountain range. Azerbaijan claimed to have gained control over several villages in the same Fuzuli area that was central to its 2016 offensive .