BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 12
Trend:
The Armenian armed forces fired on Azerbaijani troops from behind Russian servicemen, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with local TV channels on January 12, 2022, Trend reports.
“I have not yet talked about another episode of the war. This conversation probably took place for the first time when we were moving towards Zangilan on the border with Armenia and were a few kilometers from Aghband settlement. We received information that the Armenian side requested that Russia send a part of the contingent of the Russian military base in Gyumri there, to the border, to Zangilan. They wanted to justify this by claiming that Azerbaijan intends to seize the Mehri part of Armenia's territory. We had no such intentions. However, a very limited contingent of the Russian base in Gyumri was sent there. We got this operative information. Immediately after this, the Armenian armed forces began firing on Azerbaijani troops from behind Russian servicemen. The distance was very small, so they were using mortars. We had casualties there. Of course, we responded and they immediately appealed to Russia claiming that Azerbaijan was allegedly firing on Russian servicemen. Can you imagine such ignominy? By the way, the Russian side, in subsequent contacts with us, accepted this incident the way I have described it. This is nothing but ignominy. In other words, they wanted us to harm the Russian servicemen by firing back at Armenian positions, so that they could achieve their goals and involve Russia in this war,” Azerbaijani president said.
“Many events that took place during the war are evidence of the mean nature of the Armenian side’s actions. Even in relation to their own servicemen. We have found so many bodies of Armenian servicemen who were chained to their vehicles and trucks. The Armenian military and political command ordered that deserters should be shot on the spot. We have all this information because we watched the whole area not only in Karabakh, but also most parts of Armenia. Therefore, we had reliable information about what was happening. By the way, things are the same now,” the head of state said.