Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during a telephone conversation with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Tuesday, January 17 stressed the need for the complete unblocking of traffic along the Lachin corridor in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) as soon as possible.

"The Russian side stressed the need for the soonest complete unblocking of traffic along the Lachin corridor in accordance with the parameters set out in the tripartite high-level statement of November 9, 2020," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The importance of reaching mutually acceptable decisions on all related issues was also emphasized, in order to resume comprehensive work on the key tracks of the Azerbaijani-Armenian normalization on the basis of agreements between the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia."

Supplies of electricity from Armenia to Karabakh were similarly blocked by Azerbaijan on January 10, leading to serious power shortages in the Armenian-populated territory. The resulting daily power cuts have hit particularly hard local residents using electricity to heat their homes. The absence of natural gas would only aggravate the problem.