The National Security Service (NSS) said the woman living in the village of Shaki was shot two days after Azerbaijani authorities informed it that an Azerbaijani soldier deserted his unit “under unknown circumstances” and may have fled to Armenia. It said he was arrested by the Armenian police shortly after the shooting incident.
“It has been established that the crime was committed by the Azerbaijani serviceman, who has been arrested. Details of the incident have also been presented to the Azerbaijani side,” the NSS added in a statement.
The Shaki mayor, Ruben Manucharian, said the Armenian woman was wounded inside her house in the presence of her children. In his words, the intruder carried an assault rifle but wore civilian clothes, and was apparently stabbed in the chest before being tracked down by the police.
“He got out of that woman's house and fled -- and he was wounded too,” Manucharian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“When we arrived at the scene, we saw traces of blood,” he said. “But the woman's life is not in danger.”
“By the time we captured [the Azerbaijani,] he was exhausted from blood loss. I asked him a word or two in Azerbaijani. He said, ‘I’m dying.’ I told him, ‘You won't die,’” added the village chief.
The 38-year-old Armenian woman was taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Sisian. A spokeswoman for the Armenian Health Ministry confirmed that her gunshot wound is not life-threatening.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Office of the Prosecutor-General identified the soldier as Nasim Musayev. It said he deserted an Azerbaijani military base in the Lachin district sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh on September 26. It said Azerbaijani authorities remain in touch with the Armenian side “in order to ascertain the circumstances surrounding Nasimi Musaev's presence in Armenia and his arrest.”
Shaki is located less than 20 kilometers from the nearest sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The NSS did not say how the Azerbaijani soldier managed to cross the militarized border and advance into Armenian territory. It was also not clear why residents of this and other border communities were not alerted about the intrusion.
Armenia’s two main opposition group decried these facts. The Strong Armenia bloc said the incident is “further proof that Armenia's borders and the safety of its citizens are in a state of neglect.” In a separate statement, its parliamentary leader, Narek Karapetian, warned the authorities in Yerevan against repatriating the soldier.
Anna Grigorian of the Hayastan alliance issued the same warning. She suggested that the authorities issued no security alerts to local residents because “they wanted to find that Azerbaijani soldier and quietly hand him over to Azerbaijan.”
Two other Azerbaijani soldiers entered the same area in April 2023. One of them was detained in a village close to Shaki, while the other killed an Armenian man in another Syunik district before being caught three days later. They both were swapped for 32 Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan in December 2023.