'Everyone Needs To Fight': The Village Volunteers Of The Karabakh War

Ethnic Armenian men with Soviet-made weapons in a village in Nagorno-Karabakh -- a breakaway region which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan -- on October 23.
 

A volunteer fighter with a Christian cross and the letters of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation on his weapon stands ready.
 
The ARF is a nationalist political party that was formed in the Ottoman Empire in the 1890s with the reported aim of “defending Armenian villages from massacres that were widespread in some of the Armenian-populated areas of the empire.”

A man from another group of armed ethnic Armenian volunteers in the village of Avetarnots on October 25.

A militiaman walks on an empty road in Avetarnots, 14 kilometers from Stepanakert, the largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armed volunteers relax at an undisclosed location south of Stepanakert.
 
Armenia has a long history of armed volunteers signing up to fight in the country's wars.

A volunteer fighter gestures in Avetarnots.
 
Groups who formed volunteer battalions to defend Armenian civilians and disrupt Ottoman rule in the 1890s were known as “Fedayi,” which is derived from a similar Arabic word meaning “to sacrifice.”
 

Ethnic Armenian gunmen rest in a village south of Stepanakert.
 
In August 2020, just before the latest hostilities broke out, lawmaker Sasun Mikaelian called for a formal volunteer militia to be formed to supplement Armenia’s military. Mikaelian said such a militia was necessary because Armenia was “surrounded by enemies.”
 

An elderly ethnic Armenian sits next to his weapon in Avetarnots.
 
Some combatants in the current conflict have dusted off old weapons stored in their homes and last used in the Nagorno-Karabakh War that ended in 1994.

A volunteer fighter strolls near a village south of Stepanakert.
 
In early October, a volunteer fighter told AFP: "We are a small nation and we don't have any other alternative but to win. This is why everyone needs to fight."