YEREVAN. – Hraparak daily of Armenia writes: Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] President Arayik Harutyunyan told the intellectuals who arrived in Artsakh from Armenia that even before the [44-day] war [in the fall of 2020] they had decided to start building underground fortifications—bunkers—as they knew that war was inevitable.

They were planning to build 100 such fortifications, which would provide strong defense in the event of an enemy attack. He said construction had already begun on 17 of them, one of which was even nearing completion, which was used during the war, and they had no casualties in that position for 44 days as the army sheltered there safely.

He noted with regret that if the war had started half a year later, those fortifications would have been built and we would not have had so many casualties, as on September 28 [2020] [i.e., the next day of the start of this war] they had already decided to stop a lot of construction work and spend all resources on building those fortifications.