By July inter ethnic warfare had started in Zangezur. Armenian couriers dispatched to Yerevan pleaded for officers and materiel. The Republic couldn't support irregular forces fighting in the south. At the critical moment General Andranik arrived in Zangezur with an irregular division estimated with about 3 to 5 thousand men and 40,000 refugees and the occupied provinces of Russian Armenia. As the commander of Armenian forces in Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic, Andranik has declared that his army is determined to continue the war against Ottoman Empire. His activities were concentrated at the link between the Ottoman Empire and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic at Karabakh, Nakhchivan, and Zangezur.