The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry issued a press release on January 26, stating that over the past several days, the Armenian side conducted a number of commando raids along the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact and the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border resulting in the death of three Azerbaijani soldiers and also a number of wounded.
According to the Azerbaijan APA news agency, a statement by the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry underscored that “we do not hide the truth from our people,” possibly making reference to Armenian claims that the Azerbaijani side withholds information about its casualties and losses.
The Karabakh Defense Ministry had announced on January 24, that over the past week, the Azerbaijani military has suffered 14 casualties and more than 20 injured during anti-commando operations by the Armenian military. An army truck carrying Azerbaijani soldiers was destroyed by Armenian units.
The policy of restricting the dissemination of information by Azerbaijan’s military leadership has set a new benchmark for the distortion of facts, Armenia’s Defense Ministry stated in a January 21 press release. The Ministry noted that this policy was implemented following a September 24, 2014 Presidential Decree “About a number of rules about security on the Armenian and Azerbaijani Line of Contact” issued by Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
The statement went on to state: “Moreover, along with full distortion of the facts related to Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and situation on the contact line, which are represented to both domestic and international communities, and dissemination of misinformation, the Ministry of Defence of that country has completely stopped publication of any negative information related to its own Armed Forces, especially those related to the flops on the contact line with numerous mindless human losses.”
Armenia’s Defense Ministry insisted that this behavior falls in line with Azerbaijan’s restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of media, human rights, and pluralism. “…characteristics of a free information society are eradicated, where free expression is viewed as treason, where generations are brought up with the image of Armenians as the enemy, its own fictional history and fictitious heroes created on committed crimes.”
For its part, the Defense Ministry of Armenia stated that it will continue its “open, transparent and impartial information policy being accountable to the society for achievements and more importantly for oversight, because it realizes the full responsibility to overcome them and ensure the defense of the Republic of Armenia and Armenian society.”
Since the beginning of January, the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border and the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact have been very tense with a number of bloody clashes taking place resulting in casualties on both sides.
The Spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan had informed the public that on the evening of January 25 and the morning hours of January 26, the borders of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh had been relatively calm.
The Nagorno Karabakh Defense Ministry had issued a press release that on “January 24-25 the adversary had violated the ceasefire regime about 800 times, during which different caliber weapons had been used to fire about 14,000 times on Armenian frontline positions.” Retaliatory operations had been conducted by the frontline units of the Karabakh Defense Army resulting in three Azerbaijani casualties and a number of injured. The Armenian side did not suffer any casualties.
