WE ARE READY FOR BOTH TO A DEFEND, AND AN OFFENSIVE WAR

Interview by special correspondent of “Hai Zinvor” newspaper Gayaneh Pogosyan, with the commander of NKR Defense Army, Lieutenant-General Levon Mnatsakanyan

“Today, the combat capability of our army is much higher than of the Azerbaijani army. This is indisputable. We were able to make maximum efficient use of the ceasefire years and create a highly professional, psychologically prepared army that failed Azerbaijan to do.”

 Levon Mnatsakanyan

Lieutenant-General

– In 2015 ceasefire violations from the enemy were too much. Yes, there was tension, they used large-caliber weapons, but we answered with repeated intensity, caused fatal counterattack. It is possible that Azerbaijan is preparing for a large-scale military action, and events of 2015 were only a prelude.

Types of weapons may change, but the image of people – courage, military talent, devotion to the defense of the Motherland – even for centuries is not significantly changed. We are the same Armenians, who won the Artsakh war, and the enemy is the same enemy, who left their weapons and ran away, though they exceeded tenfold both in human resources, and the quantity and quality of weapons.

Yes, we do not hide that the war imposed on us, we will, if necessary, lead to the end, and it can have very serious consequences for Azerbaijan.

Our army and our people are psychologically ready to defend their homeland. And the people of Azerbaijan and the soldiers do not understand, in the name of what they should sacrifice, endanger their life. They do not need Karabakh, but Karabakh for us is our home, we have nowhere to retreat. And this circumstance leads us first of all to do even the impossible to have a strong and efficient army. This circumstance compels us to write new pages of courage and heroism, defending our land.

Our main goal is always one – hour after hour, day after day to increase the combat capability of the army and to keep the borders of our homeland impregnable.