In the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Azeris were winning when a cease-fire was declared. The Russians, who are more-or-less allied with the Armenians, stepped in as peace-keepers.
Now that the Russians appear to be losing in Ukraine, the Azeris have resumed attacking Armenia. The theory is that the Russians are too busy and beleaguered in Ukraine to bother with defending Armenia.
Furthermore, the war is spreading beyond the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region to attacks on territory considered by the international community to be indisputably Armenian.
This constitutes an escalation of the conflict. It is straightforward opportunism by Azerbaijan, which is backed by Erdogan's Turkey.
This fighting can be viewed as a front in the Long War. Armenia is Orthodox Christian and Azerbaijan is Islamic. The state religion of Russia is Orthodox Christian and that of Turkey is Islam. (Russia, of course, has minority Islamic citizens, as well as adherents of other faiths across its eleven time zones.)
