On 12 April, citizens held a petition at Liberty Square with the demand to grant the title of National Hero to hero of the struggle for the liberation of Artsakh Leonid Azgaldyan.

The citizens had brought with them a poster showing a photo of Azgaldyan and his famous phrase “This is Armenia and that’s final”.

Leonid Azgaldyan was born in 1942 in Tbilisi. In 1960, he got accepted to the Faculty of Physics at Moscow Lomonosov University and was later transferred to the Faculty of Physics at Yerevan State University and brilliantly graduated as a radio physic. Leonid Azgaldyan participated in the liberation battles as a leading military figure since the launch of the Karabakh movement.

Later, the struggle for the liberation of Artsakh became his destiny. He started fighting in the Shahumyan region and later in Martakert. With the aim to bring a new sweep to the struggle for the liberation of Artsakh, in June 1991, he and Hovsep Hovsepyan formed the “Liberation Army” military organization, which conveyed new quality to the movements of the Armenian people, and he remained the commander of the military organization until the end of his life. On June 21, 1992, he died near the Tonashen village of Martakert region.

He was posthumously awarded the “Combat Cross” First Degree Order of the Republic of Armenia.