Lt. General Levon Mnatsakanyan, the defense minister and commander of the military of Artsakh held a press conference on January 24 in the country’s Army Information Center. The press conference was dedicated to the year results of the military for 2017.

During the beginning the Lt. General delivered opening remarks, presenting the provocative actions of Azerbaijan in the reporting perios, namely the February 24-25 infiltration attempts, which was prevented and pushed back– inflicting five losses of special forces operatives of Azerbaijan.

The Azeri military evacuated three more wounded soldiers from the area.

Afterwards the Lt. General addressed the Azerbaijani military exercises, its latest engineering works in the front line and acquisition of military equipment.

Presenting the 2017 works within the Defense Army, he mentioned that not a single action of Azerbaijan remained unnoticed and the army has taken adequate steps.

From the implemented works of the previous year, Levon Mnatsakanyan pointed out the creation of safer service conditions for on-duty servicemen, increasing the training level of combat duty servicemen, works for increasing military discipline, improvement of the artillery and anti air defense systems, introduction of modern technologies, equipment of new positions, improvement of the road network and others.

Summing up the year, the commander said the defense army was successful in maintaining peace and security of the people of Artsakh, and reassured that the Defense Army is able to prevent any encroachment of Azerbaijan and carry out its duty honorably.