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Russia’s southern periphery is closer to open war than at any time since the 1990s. Hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia are mounting 21 years after a cease-fire froze a conflict that flared in the dying days of the Soviet Union. During the relative calm, companies including BP Plc poured billions of dollars into producing oil and gas in Azerbaijan and building pipelines to link the country with southern Italy, says an article by Bloomberg.com.

“A May 3 election looming in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region Armenians took over in the war more than two decades ago, may trigger a wider confrontation, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said. The vote “could further escalate the tensions, increasing the risks of a wider confrontation over the disputed territory,” Anna Tokar, an analyst at RBS in London, said in an e-mailed note on April 16. That risks “putting the oil and gas pipelines in the South Caucasus in danger,” the article says.

At the center of the conflict, which has simmered with shootouts and other incidents ever since the truce, is Nagorno-Karabakh. The first four months of the year have been the deadliest, according to the Caspian Defense Studies Institute in the Azeri capital, Baku. There have been 31 confirmed deaths so far this year in clashes on the front line, according to Jasur Sumarinli, head of the research group, the article notes.

With the world focused on the conflict in Ukraine, the escalation is rattling a region crisscrossed by pipelines after BP and its partners invested more than $50 billion in Azeri energy projects. Azeri incursions into the Armenian-controlled areas surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh are raising pressure along the disengagement line separating the adversaries, torn apart by religion and international alliances. Armenia’s Defense Ministry is accusing its foe of waging a “hybrid war” of “micro-activities” from information attacks to armed forays. President Serzh Sargsyan, told France 24 on March 21 that all-out war may resume “at any time.”