American journalist Patrick Lancaster released a video of a rally of Armenian soldiers' parents near the Armenian Defense Ministry building, asking not to send their children to the Russian peacekeepers' zone of responsibility in Azerbaijan. Lancaster said a group of Armenian conscripts was recently sent to Khankendi through the Lachin corridor under the guise of technical cargo.
Everyone with whom the journalist speaks in this video says the same thing: we do not want our children to be sent to Azerbaijan. "Like they are building materials," the first of those who spoke with Lancaster described the illegal dispatch of military personnel to Khankendi. "We were told that they would not return to Karabakh, and now they want to smuggle soldiers there. Our children are not building materials!"
Another man stressed that the Armenian military cannot serve in Karabakh, and therefore the Ministry of Defense has no right to bring soldiers there, to the territory of Azerbaijan. "We do not want our children to be sent to Karabakh. They mustn't be there, according to the agreement between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. And they (the army command - editor's note) want violence!" he noted.
"My grandson was on the first line in Jabrayil. The war stopped, he came back, wounded with shrapnel and depressed. But the people came from the department and asked about the reasons of his staying at home? They promised to put him in the hospital. He will not go to serve in Karabakh! He must serve only on the territory of Armenia! " the third man said, adding that the authorities promised not to send conscripts to Karabakh after the war, but they do not keep their promises.
The mother of one of the conscripts emphasized: "We allow our children to serve, but not in Karabakh. Because it is restless there! We do not need it." "We do not want our children to go to Karabakh, we want them to serve in Armenia. In Karabakh they can be captured," another woman said, specifying that her son is still in Armenia.
The third mother said that those who returned from the war are afraid the authorities will send them to the territory of Azerbaijan again. "No problems are solved by the authorities. We are not against our children serving, but we just need them to be healthy," she concluded.
The participants of the rally also said that those soldiers who still remain in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers are not given leave by the Ministry of Defense so that the Armenian Armed Forces remain in Khankendi. In addition, soldiers are brought to Karabakh in civilian clothes in order to deceive the Russian peacekeepers who do not allow Armenian servicemen to enter the territory of Azerbaijan.
Thus, the citizens of Armenia, the parents of the soldiers, spoke in detail about how Yerevan is violating the provisions of the November Statement and trying to illegally import Armenian servicemen into the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers. Moreover, the soldiers themselves report these violations, because they do not want the authorities to send them back to the territory of Azerbaijan, where the Armenian army suffered a crushing defeat.
