Friday, August 7 2020 17:42

ArmInfo. Third president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, in a short video entitled "Let's speak honestly: Serzh Sargsyan on the April war" part four told why, in his opinion, the Armenian side suffered so many losses in manpower during  the Azerbaijani aggression in April 2016.

"I sincerely regret that it was impossible to save the lives of all  servicemen. My thoughts and feelings are with every family. It is  shortsighted to think that during the hostilities we will not have  casualties. But, we are all convinced of how heroically our soldiers  and commanders fought, 75 of them remained forever young, covering  Artsakh and Armenia with their bodies," Sargsyan said.

When asked to assess the actions of the Armenian Army, the third  President of the Republic of Armenia noted that, according to  external intelligence, the Armenian Armed Forces inflicted 4-5 times  more losses on the enemy among military personnel, officers,  including senior officers and weapons.  "Even our opponents have  recently started writing that, according to their data, the  Azerbaijanis have lost more than 1,000 servicemen," he said.

To clarify what his feelings after the April won, Sargsyan stated  that after such a big war and victory, they were sad and in grief.  "But, at the same time, we were proud of our soldiers, officers,  generals, all those who participated in this heroic battle," Sargsyan  summed up.  To note, on the night of April 2, 2016, the armed forces  of Azerbaijan committed a large-scale military aggression against  Artsakh. The war was accompanied by war crimes, gross violations of  the laws and customs of war, as well as the norms of international  humanitarian law.

The April hostilities have become the largest since the May 1994  ceasefire agreement. During the hostilities from 2 to 5 April, all  Armenian military units, including artillerymen, tankmen and  anti-tank units, showed themselves excellently. During the intense  fighting, the units of the Artsakh Defense Army destroyed 2  Azerbaijani helicopters that attacked the positions of the Armenian  side, 26 tanks, as well as 14 drones, 1 BM-21 (Grad) rocket and  artillery installation, 4 BMPs and 1 engineer installation.

During the hostilities on the Line of Contact, the Armenian side lost  64 servicemen, 13 volunteers, 4 civilians, more than 120 people were  wounded, 9 more servicemen died after the cessation of active  hostilities, in the period until April 13, several died later in  hospitals.

Based on the data of the State Department, presented on May 16 in  Vienna in the same year, it becomes clear that in addition to 81  losses from the Armenian side, about 270 Azerbaijanis died. At the  same time, analysts of the Bellingcat international research group  estimate Baku's losses at 400-500 killed soldiers.