This geopolitical hotspot had been fought over since the Soviet Union fell, with tens of thousands dead and up to a million homeless. This time, though, was different. Within 24 hours, Armenian forces surrendered to Azerbaijan, as Russian peacekeepers abandoned their posts--and the entire population packed their bags to flee.
Through the stories of ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Gabriel Gavin chronicles how Nagorno-Karabakh went from an ancient home shared by both peoples to a battle-scarred land of empty houses and untended graves. Ashes of Our Fathers reveals a simmering ethnic conflict inside the Kremlin's self-declared sphere of influence; the lives and loyalties of the people caught up in the chaos; and the decisions, from Yerevan and Baku to Moscow and Washington to Tel Aviv and Tehran, that enabled one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the 2020s.