The Armenian military helicopter was shot in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) airspace, and it fell a mere twenty meters away from the positions of the adversary.

NKR Defense Minister Movses Hakobyan, who is also Commander of the NKR Defense Army, told the aforesaid to reporters on Friday, and during the Unity 2014 operational and tactical joint military exercises of the Armenia and the NKR Armed Forces.

In his words, however, it is still impossible to approach the crash site.

Hakobyan noted that they have petitioned to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), with a request to help in removing the helicopter crew from that area, and the ICRC has responded that it is dealing with this matter. 

And to the reporters’ query on whether or not this tragedy might have prevented, the NKR defense minister responded: “Everything is possible. But you need to consider who our adversary is. If the adversary had logic and [a sense of] responsibility, it would not have resorted to such a step, since the helicopter was participating in a training exercise.”    

He also informed that the international organizations and the Armenian state agencies already have appropriately reacted to this incident.        

The Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire and shot down an NKR Air Force helicopter on Wednesday. The chopper was downed during a training flight, and nearby the eastern sector of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact. As a result, three pilots are believed to have been killed: The commander of the helicopter, Major Sergey Sahakyan, and Senior Lieutenant Sargis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan. Information was disseminated some time thereafter, however, that a member of the helicopter crew may still be alive The adversary, on the other hand, continues to intensively fire shots toward the crash site.