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.
On the twenty-second day of the war, October 18, Armenia violated the second truce introduced the day before at 23:00. Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani liberation army advanced to the Araz River, and Iranian citizens greeted it from the other side. In the morning, new video footage of the consequences of the Armenian Armed Forces' fourth missile strike on Ganja was published, the rubble at the site of the terrorist attack was dismantled only by 15:00.
In the morning it also became known that immediately after the announcement of the second truce, the Armenian Armed Forces sent a heavy bomber to the positions of the Azerbaijani army. Video footage of the occupying troops of Armenia abandoning fortified military units, without waiting for the counter-offensive of Azerbaijani forces, was published.
By the morning of the war's twenty-second day, the invaders recognized the death of 673 soldiers and officers. At about 11:30, another Su-25 of the Armenian Air Force, attacking Azerbaijani positions in the Jebrail region, was shot down.
A mass action was held in Moscow to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attacks committed by the Armenian troops against the peaceful city of Ganja. Meanwhile, the occupying forces continued to fire at the front-line peaceful settlements of Azerbaijan, a school was hit in Terter. The Aghdam region was also under fire from the invaders.
After the liberation of the city of Fizuli, desertion in the Armenian occupation forces became widespread. The occupying command tried to compensate for this with drone strikes.
At about 15:00, the Azerbaijani liberation army reached the famous Khudaferin bridges connecting the two Azerbaijani-populated banks of the Araz River. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev thanked Iran and Georgia for banning the supply of weapons to Armenia through their territory.
After 15:00 it became known that another medium-range missile was launched by the Armenian Armed Forces in peaceful regions of Azerbaijan far from the front - it fell just 100 km from Baku, in the Khizi region, the investigation showed that it was an S-300 missile. Baku offered Yerevan to transfer the bodies of the liquidated occupiers across the border in the Tovuz region. The Armenian prisoners thanked Azerbaijan for the good treatment.
Closer to 16:00, EU diplomacy condemned the terrorist attack in Ganja carried out the day before. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke in the evening condemning Armenia's attacks on the civilian population of Azerbaijan. ANAMA reported that over 22 days of the war, about 200 unexploded shells were found on the territory of Azerbaijan, fired by invaders from the occupation zone and across the border of the two countries.
In the evening, it became known that the invaders' reinforcements sent to the front refused to fight. There was video footage of the hoisting of the Azerbaijani flag in Fizuli. In Georgia, the main TV tower was painted in the colors of the Azerbaijani flag. A rally was held in Iran to demand the closure of the Nurduz border checkpoint on the border with Armenia.
Thus, on the twenty-second day of the war, the liberation army of Azerbaijan reached a straight road along the Araz River and the Iranian border to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Since the invaders did not have significant military fortifications in the depths of the occupation zone, the liberation of the Zangilan and Gubadli regions was a matter of time. After the liberation of Fuzuli, the redoubts of the invaders built on the former contact line of the troops lost all meaning, since now the liberation of the Azerbaijani land took place from the rear of the occupation forces. In essence, the war had already been won.
