44 days of Azerbaijan's Patriotic War: 8th day, October 4, 2020

Exactly a year ago, on September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan's Patriotic War began. On that day, Armenia's occupying forces subjected the positions of the armed forces of Azerbaijan along the front line and the adjacent populated areas in Azerbaijan to intensive fire with the use of large-calibre weapons, artillery and mortars. Baku decided to launch a counter-offensive operation to ensure the safety of the civilian population. Vestnik Kavkaza offers its readers to follow the events of the 44 days of Azerbaijan's Patriotic War as they were covered a year ago.

Throughout the night of the war's 8th day, October 4, intense fighting continued. In the morning, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry summed up the preliminary results of the first week of hostilities.

Russia expressed its readiness to send peacekeepers to the line of contact between the Armenian occupation and Azerbaijani liberation troops with the consent of the parties. The northern provinces of Iran, predominantly populated by Azerbaijanis, issued a joint statement in support of the liberation of Azerbaijani territories from occupation.

Early on Sunday morning, Ganja, which is located 60 km from the front, was fired by 'Tochka U' short-range missiles. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense noticed that the attack on Ganja was carried out from the territory of Armenia. The Armenian Defense Ministry tried to explain the attack on Ganja by an attempt to eliminate the local airfield, although Azerbaijan did not use it for military purposes and, in general, used only drones in battles.

Turkey was the first to draw attention to Armenia's violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits military strikes against civilian targets. Meanwhile, the invaders continued rocket attacks from Khankendi on Terter and Horadiz. The death toll from these attacks of civilians in Azerbaijan rose to 22, and the number of wounded to 74. After the shelling of Ganja, work was intensified to destroy the military equipment of the invaders, Yerevan's puppet regime in the occupied lands hypocritically "ordered to stop strikes on Ganja", although the attacks were made from the territory of Armenia.

By 15:00, the exact number of victims and victims of the first missile strikes on Ganja was reported. One of the city's Armenian residents was among them. Vestnik Kavkaza published photographic documents of the consequences of the Ganja attack.

By this time, the city of Jebrail and nine villages around it were liberated. The puppets of Yerevan on the occupied lands began to take their families to Armenia. At the same time, residents of Tartar announced that they would not leave their homes, despite the artillery and rocket attacks from the invaders.

Shortly before 19:00, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the first time expressed his readiness to stop hostilities, but only in exchange for a schedule for the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Azerbaijan. Soon a video was published about the liberation of the famous combat position, where the national hero of Azerbaijan Mubariz Ibrahimov destroyed many invaders on June 18, 2010. Also there were videos about the capture of numerous war trophies.

By 20:00, nine more villages of the Jebrail region were liberated. In response, medium-range missiles "Tochka-U" were launched from Armenia at the peaceful Azerbaijani city of Mingachevir, which is 100 km away from the front. With two more missiles, Yerevan hit the regions close to Baku - Absheron and Khizi, 300 km away from the front.

Closer to midnight, a map of the Azerbaijni territories liberated in 8 days was published.

Thus, on the eighth day, the occupying forces of Armenia increased the scale of war crimes against the civilian population of Azerbaijan, starting to fire rockets at Ganja and Mingachevir, which are far from the front, as well as the Khizi and Absheron regions adjacent to Baku. On this day, the city of Jebrail and a number of villages around it were liberated from occupation, after which Yerevan received an offer to stop the war in exchange for the withdrawal of the invaders from Azerbaijani land.