Turkish Invasion of Armenia 2020

After the failure of the Turkish government to achieve its goals in the recently finished Syrian Civil War as well as increasing rifts with NATO and a stagnating economy, Erdogan needed a way to restore his credibility, internationally and domestically. An opportunity came up in August 2019 when tensions in Nagorno-Karabagh grew. An increasingly powerful Azerbaijan, seeking to settle its conflict with an increasingly weak and poor Armenia, launched an offensive to bring the unrecognized republic of Artsakh back under its control. Turkey responded by demanding Armenia cease its military support to Artsakh. Armenia complied, fearing the consequences. This helped Erdogan and his party to securely win re-election in November. However, despite this, the Azeri offensive was slow and beginning to stall with minimal gains due to a determined resistance from Armenians who saw their struggle as existential. Frustrated by this, Turkey made a second ultimatum to Armenia in February 2020 demanding that Armenia allows a corridor for the Turkish military to travel to support Azerbaijan. However, this was completely unacceptable to the Armenian government which was still facing riots and protests over their compliance with the first ultimatum. As a result, war broke out. The Turkish strategy was to advance on two main fronts: Advancing to link up with the Azeris to help them subdue Artsakh while also occupying towns south of Yerevan and other border areas to put pressure on Armenia to surrender. This advance would be supported by intense air-strikes that crippled Armenian infrastructure. The advance was relatively slow due to it still being winter, mountainous terrain and determined Armenian resistance. Nonetheless, the Armenians were no match for the sheer power of Turkey and in April they surrendered. The terms of the treaty were that Armenia mustn't give any support to Artsakh, the Armenian military would be severely limited in terms of how much equipment it was allowed, Armenia would have to pay reparations and they would have to allow Turkey a corridor through their territory to support Azerbaijan. The treaty caused chaos in Armenia. The government was overthrown by a coup in June 2020 and the war in Nagorno-Karabagh ended in July 2021 with an Azeri victory. The resulting exodus further exacerbated Armenia's problems.