YEREVAN. – I was on the plane at the beginning of the military actions. I was returning to Armenia from the United States. I was informed on the plane about military actions. Armenia’s third President Serzh Sargsyan stated this at his press conference Wednesday, referring to a journalist's question, whether it is true that, as the chairman of the April 2016 war parliamentary inquiry committee has said: “During the war, the main omissions were in the state administration, and the army waited for a while for an order from the Commander-in-Chief.”

"And during that report, [then] minister of defense Seyran Ohanyan informed me that our defense operation plan has already been put into action; that is, what order is it about? At the very maximum, I would have ordered that, 'Put that plan into action,' which was already in effect. To the honor of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff [of the Armed Forces], I can say that all the timeframes have been completely maintained; that is, the plan of those measures went in the right direction—starting from the moment when they were put into action," the President said.

Sargsyan also stated that the beginning of these hostilities was a surprise to them. "It always happens that way. There is a surprise when expecting anything bad—even when that bad thing happens, and there are many problems during the implementation of that particular defense in the Armed Forces. Those areas of defense are so large that we cannot have the necessary number of soldiers [there] every day. After all, those soldiers have to rest, they have to be engaged in combat training, and there are other circumstances, too. Our army was so organized that it launched a major counterattack and the enemy retreated off very quickly," Serzh Sargsyan concluded.