Under what circumstances were Armenian servicemen killed during the July events?

On August 28, during the awarding ceremony of the heroes of the July events in Sardarapat, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan referred to the hostilities and stated that the Armenian side did not have any casualties.

“Many may not know, maybe they did not pay attention, but during the victorious battles in July, an exceptional situation was created, when during the hostilities we had no casualties in the border combat positions; we had only one person who was slightly wounded under the circumstances when the now famous “Fearless” position and all the adjacent positions were the target of the heaviest shelling, mass attacks of specially trained special forces,” Pashinyan said.

The Fact Investigation Platform tried to understand under what circumstances the Armenian servicemen were killed during the July hostilities.

The losses of the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides during the July hostilities

On July 12, servicemen of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces attempted to cross the state border of Armenia on the Tavush section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

The Ministry of Defense reported that all the attempts of the Azerbaijanis were neutralized without any casualties on the Armenian side.

On that day, the Azerbaijani side reported 3 victims and 4 wounded.

After that, until July 21, the enemy regularly resumed firing in the direction of both the Armenian positions and settlements, trying to take control of the position called “Fearless”, but all attempts were unsuccessful.

During the battles, the Armenian side had 4 victims: two officers, namely, Major Garush Hambardzumyan and Captain Sos Elbakyan, and two conscripts, junior sergeant Smbat Gabrielyan and Grisha Matevosyan. Private Arthur Muradyan, a conscript, died later from an injury he received on July 14.

On July 27, Ashot Mikayelyan, a contract soldier of the Armed Forces, was shot dead by a sniper on the Azerbaijani side in one of the military units located in the same northeastern direction.

From the Armenian side, 36 servicemen were lightly wounded.

The Azerbaijani side officially acknowledged the deaths of only 12 servicemen, including the Chief of Staff of the 3rd Army Corps of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, Major General Polad Hashimov, Artillery Chief, Colonel Ilgar Mirza, and middle-ranking servicemen.

Under what circumstances were the Armenian servicemen killed? 

In response to a written inquiry by Fip.am about the circumstances of each of the servicemen killed during the Tavush battles, the Ministry of Defense said that 4 servicemen of the RA Armed Forces were killed during the battles in the north-eastern border of Armenia due to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, and one serviceman due to the explosion of a long-range projectile fired by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces.

“All the mentioned servicemen were killed in non-border combat positions,” the answer reads.

Nelli Lazaryan