The outbreak of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the weekend is the latest episode in a saga stretching back to the waning years of the USSR. Although recognised as being part of Azerbaijan, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent zone populated by ethnic Armenians. Its independence came as a result of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse; while this ended in the mid-1990s in a victory for the Armenian-backed separatists, sporadic fighting has plagued the area ever since.