A resident of Artsakh’s Karin Tak, Vladimir Arustamyan, who is temporarily staying in Dilijan with his wife and daughter, is a therapist by profession. He was on the battlefield for the entirety of the war. Arustamyan found it difficult to hide his tears when he spoke about the war.
After a few moments of silence, he said in a calm voice, “The war… the war was a terrible disaster.”
Heavy battles took place against the enemy for seven days in Karin Tak, a village with 700 residents that is a military strongpoint. The village leader himself was killed during the battles.
“We defended Karin Tak for seven days from November 1st until the 7th. Then, they captured the village and we retreated towards Shushi. There were heavy battles on the road to Shushi. We did everything so that Shushi would not fall, but our forces were not equal. Fifteen of us stayed in a bunker in Shushi for one night. Some of them were our fellow villagers and the others were residents of Shushi who refused to leave the city. We stayed in Shushi that night and then went to Stepanakert. But there was a serious possibility that they could capture Stepanakert on the 10th. That is when they signed the agreement that stopped the fighting,” Arustamyan said.
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According to him, Armenian soldiers carried out heroic fights until the end, but their victory was unrealistic due to the inequality in numbers.
Vladimir believes that, if Turks and terrorists were not involved in the war, it would not have lasted more than ten days. “There were heavy battles in Shushi, and no matter how well we pushed them back in Karin Tak, there were more and more of them. Their numbers were increasing like flies. If Turkey didn’t help them, the war would not have lasted as long, and we would have brought Azerbaijan to its knees in one week.”
The therapist also stressed that the UAVs also played a decisive role. They inflicted a lot of damage upon the Armenian Armed Forces. “The UAVs would fall right in our trenches. Around 60-70 percent of our anti-aircraft was destroyed during the first days of the war. Our soldiers mostly were killed by the UAVs. The majority of wounded soldiers received injuries from projectiles. I barely met anyone who received a gunshot wound.”
Arustamyan was able to reunite with his family three days after the agreement was signed between Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. His family stayed at the Nubarashen Children’s Medical Center during the war, and then they went to Dilijan. He and his family believe that they must return to Artsakh and live there. “We are sitting here waiting for when we can go to Artsakh. Our village is different and our Shushi is different. Although we no longer have our village, Artsakh is calling us. We lost many friends and fellow villagers in the war, and we are now refugees scattered all throughout Armenia.”
Despite the pain he feels for losing his home village, Arustamyan believes that all fights in the future need to take place peacefully. “There are 13 Armenian villages left in the part of the gorge from Shushi to Hadrut where Azerbaijanis never set food. Fourteen thousand refugees remain in Hadrut alone. Those territories must be returned to us, but only through negotiations. Our people have seen enough war. We lost an entire generation in this war.”
Regarding the future of Artsakh, the Karin Tak resident believes that we will lose Artsakh entirely if Artsakh is not recognized. “The people of Artsakh will not feel safe living among the enemy, which means that they will leave.”
Satenik Hovsepyan
