During the night before leaving for the battlefield, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) President Arayik Haroutyunyan met with the officers of Defense Army special units and appealed to them.

"Brothers, compatriots, you realize the historical moment. Today our future, our right to live in this country is being decided. We must perform together with you today the continuation of the heroic deeds of our ancestors for centuries, millennia. I want for us to realize. We are living in the most crucial moment of centuries, millennia. We are living in the fateful time of having and not having a people, a homeland. We must realize that the future of not only Artsakh, Armenia, but also of the Armenian nation, to what extent we will be called a ‘nation’, to what extent we will continue to be a nation on this planet depends on each of us.

Rest assured that we will win. We have lived through a more difficult period in 1992, when we had lost most of the territory of Artsakh, (…); we succeeded then, we will succeed today, too. I, too, will be with you, let no one doubt, for the homeland, for our future," the Artsakh President said.