YEREVAN. – The adversary continues to keep the situation tense on the border, and this does not yet allow approaching the downed helicopter.  

Armenia defense minister’s press secretary Artsrun Hovhannisyan wrote the aforesaid in his Facebook page.

“The adversary, not stopping the firing of shots throughout the night, violated the ceasefire more than 200 times. 

“At the same time, the video, which the Azerbaijani side has disseminated, is an additional proof that the [press] release, which the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense had disseminated earlier, is fiction.

“The video once again factually proves that the NKR AF [i.e., Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Air Force] helicopters have not transgressed the [Karabakh-Azerbaijan] border, and they are not attacking on any position.

“According to the order, helicopters that are attacking, or even returning after an attack, use other flight tactics and other technical means,” Hovhannisyan noted.

A Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (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. As a result, three pilots have been killed: The commander of the helicopter, Major Sergey Sahakyan, and Senior Lieutenant Sargis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan.