The former de facto president of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Samvel Shahramanyan, has spoken out in a new statement on Azerbaijan's recent military operation against the separatist republic. He explained that after a few hours it had become clear that the troops of Nagorno-Karabakh were alone and it was impossible to withstand a tenfold superiority of the Azerbaijani armed forces. "Therefore, it was necessary to save human lives, which we did," Shahramanyan said.

Regarding the billions of dollars in weapons left behind, Shahramanyan emphasized that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan should know exactly whose balance sheet these weapons were on and who was responsible for them. Shahramanyan also recalled a recent statement by David Babayan that the de facto Ministry of Defense of Nagorno-Karabakh was subordinate to the Armenian government until the very last day and functioned as a structural unit of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia. "You should know this and not try to find culprits," he added.

Furthermore, Shahramanyan emphasized that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is not closed. "Mechanisms must be found that will enable a just solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue," Shahramanyan concluded.

Recall that in September 2023, the Azerbaijani army carried out a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh that put an end to the existence of the unrecognized republic. Around one hundred thousand ethnic Armenians fled the region in fear of the Azerbaijani military offensive. Shahramanyan signed the declaration on the self-dissolution of the unrecognized republic and moved to Armenia. Unlike some other members of the separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh, he was not arrested by the Azerbaijani law enforcement authorities.