Tomorrow, 17 January, residents of what remains of the besieged and breakaway Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) will be allocated ration coupons for basic and essential foodstuffs as control of the strategic Lachin Corridor by self-identified Azerbaijani environmental activists enters its second month. Despite their claims, however, most consider the effective but albeit partial blockade of the region, situated within Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, to be more than just about that.

At time of writing, the strategic Lachin corridor has been effectively blocked for twelve days by Azerbaijani protestors. Depending on whom you ask, this recent development either risks derailing an already precarious Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process or makes the signing of a treaty all the more urgent. Whatever your position, however, it was clear that Baku would apply pressure on the only connection between Armenia and what remains of the former Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).

What was unknown was simply how.

Not unexpectedly, on 20 January, certain food products in Karabakh will only be available via a rationing coupon or voucher system. This had already been announced by defacto State Minister on 8 January before it was then announced yesterday that it would brought into operation on 20 January. This is something anyway anticipated when stocks in shops started to increasingly disappear or sell out quickly. The coupons will be distributed on 17 January.

Some residents had already been quoted by media calling for such a system as the effective siege of Karabakh on the Lachin Corridor enters its second month.

Yesterday, Artur Tovmasyan, defacto Speaker of Karabakh’s National Assembly, issued a statement calling on the Russian, French and U.S. Presidents to force Azerbaijan to allow an airlift from Armenia to the isolated region’s airport situated outside of Stepanakert. The remarks came after over three weeks of what are claimed to be environmental protests effectively blocking access to and from Karabakh on the Lachin Corridor.