The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) has petitioned to the Office of the Red Cross, so as to mediate and transfer to Armenia the crew of the Armenian helicopter which the Azerbaijanis had shot down.     

NKR Defense Minister and Defense Army Commander Movses Hakobyan told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

He noted that since the helicopter had crashed nearby the Azerbaijanis’ positions, the Armenian side was unable to approach the helicopter crew, but it already has petitioned to the Red Cross to act as a mediator in this regard. 

An investigation is also underway in connection with this incident. 

And to the query as to how the night had passed on the Line of Contact, the minister responded: “Shots are fired every day; we don’t pay attention to such small details.”

The NKR MOD had informed that an NKR Air Force helicopter was shot down on Wednesday at around 1:45pm, and as a result of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani armed forces. The helicopter was downed during a training flight in the airspace of the eastern sector of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact. The location where the helicopter was shot down is very close to the Line of Contact. The adversary, using various-caliber artillery weapons, continued to intensively fire shots toward the scene of the incident.

Three pilots have been killed: The commander of the helicopter, Major Sergey Sahakyan, and Senior Lieutenant Sargis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan.