The plane with 15 Armenian POWs has landed at the Erebuni airfield in Yerevan, reports Sputnik Armenia.
Retuned Armenian Edgar Makhdesyan said “finally we are home” upon landing in Yerevan.
To the question of how many POWs still remain in Azerbaijan, he answered “enough.”
“The most important thing is for the Armenian people to be strong in spirit,” he added, per Sputnik.
“We returned safe and sound, we are now waiting for the return of our remaining brothers,” said Makhdesyan.
The names of the 15 returned Armenian POWs runs as follows,
- Volodya Akopyan
- Gevorg Asatryan
- Gor Gasparyan
- Sisak Yengoyan
- Yuri Karapetyan
- Edgar Makhdesyan
- Aram Minasyan
- Mkrtich Minasyan
- Albert Petrosyan
- Armen Poghosyan
- Romik Sedrakyan
- Kamo Sefilyan
- Yeghishe Aslanyan
- Robert Gevorkyan
- Andranik Manukyan
Among those returned will be 12 Armenian servicemen who were captured and taken prisoner in Khtsaberd at the end of November 2020. Yesterday, they were sentenced by a Baku court to 6 months in prison on trumped-up charges of “violating the state border of Azerbaijan.” Other charges were dropped.
Thanks to the efforts of the Rustam Muradov, the Commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Artsakh, in addition to the 12 Armenian POWS, three more POWs are returning as well because of these negotiations the plane’s departure from Baku was delayed.
“Continuing the work to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the trilateral statement in Baku, today I personally handed over to the Azerbaijani side maps of minefields in two regions established by Armenian units during the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. In turn, Azerbaijan released fifteen Armenian servicemen who were delivered to Yerevan by the Russian Aerospace Forces plane,” said Muradov, added that the Russian side will continue to work in the future to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the trilateral statement on the cessation of the armed conflict.
