Two weeks ago, Nikol Pashinyan recalled from the podium of the Parliament during one of his press conferences the questions of the opposition figures of Artsakh transferred to him and said: “They said the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are heroic and will stand to the end then they called me trembling and said ‘do something for us to escape from here.”
Nikol Pashinyan does not give names during the Q&A session, although it is clear which opposition figures he is referring to. Not wanting to participate in the remote debate between Pashinyan and Artsakh officials, however, it is worth noting that the people of Artsakh really fought a heroic struggle in those days.
Right after the forced depopulation of Artsakh, Forrights.am initiated and continues to meet both with the citizens who lived in the front-line settlements and with the soldiers of the Armed Forces. In our previous publications, we have presented the actions of their struggle.
This time, Forrights.am met with Levon from Artsakh, who was a contract soldier during the 44-Day War, and on September 19, 2023, was in a special squad of the National Security Service. He told us about the difficulties, with which they were able to survive and ensure the safe departure of the civilians.
“There is a bridge from Gandzasar to Vank, the Khachen bridge. If the enemy took it, the Martakert region would be under siege. We were on that bridge until the last person left. The good thing was that we survived and got out,” recalls Levon, adding that he participated in non-stop battles for three days.
Levon and his comrades-in-arms found themselves in a dangerous situation near the Khachen bridge, but they did not leave the place of protection entrusted to them: they preferred to remain in the siege, but not to allow the enemy to establish control over the bridge, because the lives of the residents of Martakert region would be endangered.
“It was a terrible situation: people, civilians, were coming out of their houses to leave, the enemy was hitting them with grenades. People left, and only then Russians came. They were also being shot at. For three days, there were battles all the time. There was no bread, no water, no cigarettes, nothing. We fought non-stop for three nights and that’s how we got out of the siege. We had no casualties; we had five wounded. The enemy had many casualties. Ordinary soldiers did not fight with us, it was their special forces, specially trained. They wanted to take the bridge, but they didn’t succeed: we stood until the end. We imagined what they would do to us if they approached, but they couldn’t.”
They managed to get out of the blockade with great difficulty. During that time, Levon was not able to contact his family. The family in Stepanakert received news of his death. Even after leaving the blockade, the service was not over for them. “When we came out from the bridge area, we came to hold our military unit, even though the enemy was already approaching. We did not put down our weapons: we brought them to our commander,” he said.
According to the soldier of the special forces, they did not receive support from the Russian peacekeeping mission during those days.
“I served from morning to night, but I neither interfered nor saw what the Russians did. To put it bluntly, they didn’t do anything; they served or not, I don’t know. I don’t know what they were doing.”
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan is a journalist, works on the principle of "a person is an absolute value".