Epress.am News from Armenia
Today, a helicopter was shot down in the air near the Karabakh-Azerbaijan border at approximately 1:45 pm. The Azerbaijani forces shot down the NKR Defense Army MI-24 helicopter which was engaged in military exercises. The NKR Defense Army press department released the latter information.
The destruction site is extremely close to the point of contact. The official release stated that the enemy continued to intensively fire toward the helicopter’s immediate area with various small caliber arms.
The Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan claims that during the past three days the Armenian Air Force had been “conducting provocative flights” near the Karabakh-Azerbaijan border, while today, one of them attempted to attack one of Azerbaijan’s positions. According to the Azerbaijani side, the helicopter was destroyed in response to Armenian fire.
It’s been revealed that three people have died on the helicopter, one of the deaths was Major Sergey Sahakyan. The NKR Defense Army Commander, Minister Movses Hakobyan told galatv.am that soon more information would be released and that this incident should not be a cause for panic.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry Spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan denied the Azerbaijani position of the incident. “The examination of the helicopter’s debris will confirm that the helicopter was not militarily equipped. The tension from this incident continued from the Azerbaijani side, when they had already shot down the helicopter. Furthermore, the Azerbaijani side firing range did not even allow to approach the pilots. The consequences of this unprecedented provocation will be very painful for the Azerbaijani side and will stay on the conscience of the Azerbaijani military political leadership,” wrote Hovhannisyan.