Units of the Armenian armed forces grossly violated the ceasefire on the direction of the Tovuz region of the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border on July 12, 2020.

On July 12, the armed forces of Armenia attempted an attack using artillery to capture our positions on the Tovuz direction of the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border. As a result of the adequate steps undertaken by the armed forces of Azerbaijan, the enemy was driven back and its live force and military equipment have seriously been damaged. The countermeasures of the Azerbaijani Army have been adequate by nature and Azerbaijani side responded to Armenia’s provocations determinedly. The videos released by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense show that a large number of troops and equipment of the opposite side were destroyed in response to the heavy blow to the enemy positions. Although the official Yerevan hides the information about losses, the other side retreated with more than 30 casualties as can be seen from the correspondence of Armenian citizens on Facebook pages. The gross violation of the ceasefire regime by the Armenian side on the border coincides with a period of increasing internal dissatisfaction due to the failure of the Armenian government to fight the pandemic. Pashinyan government hereby tries to slap down oppositions. President Ilham Aliyev chaired meeting of Security Council as soon as acquainted with the operative information in the frontline zone. The Azerbaijan side demonstrates that it will not reconcile with the occupation of lands and the presence of any foreign military force on its territory. The incident that took place on July 12 was met angrily by the Azerbaijani public. There were calls on social networks to launch military operations, ordinary citizens gather and go to the front line, to take up arms and liberate our lands from occupation. On the one hand, it demonstrated a high level of patriotism to the Azerbaijani society. But now that the early 1990s is not that citizens are forced to defend our lands on their own because there is no regular army. The corpse of our servicemen was met with great respect and love by the local population in the regions where our martyrs who lost their lives in the battles are buried. People express full support to the military operations for revenge against the repellent enemy, liberation of our lands. These days, a real army-people's solidarity is being demonstrated in the country. Today Azerbaijan has a strong army and Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces are always ready and able to fulfill any task and liberate their lands from the occupation set by the Order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. We believe that Azerbaijan's tricolor flag will be soon hoisted in Shusha, Lachin, Khankendi and the whole of Azerbaijan.