From September to November 2019, the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh witnessed the greatest intensification of conflict since the war of the early 1990s, as Azerbaijan gained land in a renewed military offensive. In this third episode of the Princeton Foreign Policy Podcast, Sam and Anna talk to Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region.

Olesya Vartanyan has worked on conflicts in the South Caucasus for more than ten years. Before joining Crisis Group in 2016, Olesya worked as a journalist, with a particular focus on security and conflict-related issues in Georgia and its breakaway regions. With her field reporting during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Olesya contributed to the ground-breaking investigations of The New York Times about the origins of the conflict. Enjoying unique access to Abkhazia, for a number of years she covered crisis developments in this region for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In 2013, Olesya received the first EU Monitoring Mission’s special prize in Peace Journalism. She holds master degrees from the King’s College London’s War Department and from the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs’ Media School.