STEPANAKERT—Artsakh’s Defense Minister Movses Hakobian, speaking to reporters on Friday, accused Azerbaijan of adopting a new strategy of maintaining a drawn-out, tiring war. According to the Defense Army Commander, the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 were unprecedented in terms of the tensions at the line of contact.
The adversary made no offensive attempts in 2013, while the number of attacks reached 19 in 2014. In nine cases out of 24 reported in the past two months, the enemy has managed to penetrate into Artsakh defense lines. The Minister said, however, that this does not testify to the combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army.
“The analysis of [their] actions shows that the subversive acts have been carried out by one subdivision trained in Turkey,” he noted.
The Commander said that the members of this specially trained unit faced a worthy counterstrike by soldiers of the Defense Army. “Unfortunately, we suffered losses when rebuffing the attacks,” he added.
The increased number of offensive actions and ceasefire violations are evidence of a new strategy adopted by the adversary, Hakobian said. “The task is the same – to cause harm to Armenians in every way possible, to engage Armenia and Artsakh in an arms race, to affect the domestic political situation in Armenia and to contribute to migration,” Hakobian said.
According to the Minister, the need to give a worthy response to the Azerbaijani side has led to changed decisions in the Defense Army, the armaments have been improved, the level of combat readiness has been raised.
Hakobian considers, however, that at the frontlines everything depends first of all on the alertness and fighting spirit of the soldier. “This is what has allowed the Defense Army to fulfill its task of ensuring the security of Artsakh.”
Mother Russia would love the idea of attrition. Both sides deplete their arms and run to Mother Russia for more. Azerbaijan will pay cold hard cash while Armenia will sacrifice more independence and freedom in exchange for weapons. It can’t get any sweeter than this. Make money while drinking triple purified Beluga vodka and eating Caspian black caviar. It’s good to be Russian these days!
If you don’t have the solution than it is wiser and respectful to up
It is high time for Artsakh army, accept Diaspora Armenians volunteer fighters!
Axerbaijani internal problems can be seen on Artsakh and Armenia’s border line . Money hungry PutIN supplied offensive Russian made weaponry, for troubled dictator oil man, Aliyev, in order to keep Armenia in his orbit! After all both dummy Aliyev and clever PuIN graduated from same KGB school
Turkey is behind all this because of Armenian Genocide 100th anniversary !
Armenia is looking after her affairs very well. Armenia maintains technological superiorty. Azerbaijan will never see Artsakh ever again, no matter what kind of war of atrition she pursues. At the same time they have to keep up the pretense . Artsakh is Armenia, and Armenia is a very important pivot of Russia in the Caucasus. Just as the dictum says that Armenia without Russian support it is no longer viable as an independnet state, so it is Russia out of the Caucasus without an Armenia. Armenia is a crucial factor for Russia”s presence in the Caucasus. Russia will keep selling arms to Azerbaijan, why not ? If they don’t, the Israelis will fill the void and the Americans, and the English and everyone else. The Israelis are doing a roaring arms and technology trade with the Azeries. No one complains about it , because it is ” biznis”. The Americans and the English likewise follow in the Israelis footsteps, and yet no one complains about it. But let Russia dare sell weapons, and the heavens open up . Sheer hypocrisy and asinine reasoning.Let Azerbaijan keep buying Russian weapons, Armenia get s state of the art technology from the Russians and by the same token we understand the type and kind of Russian weaponry going to Azerbaijan. Armenians must understand that Artsakh remains indisolubly linked to the motherland. There is no Armenia withouth Artsakh. Once this is understood and internalize it is the most critical factor in the national thinking. It must also be understood and internalize that today at this juncture in our history the Turk is the implacable enemy,historically and in the present, and by proxy the Turks backers are also enemies. These are the geopolitical realities.