Border breach victim Ani Avetisyan in her hospital room (Azatutyun.am screen capture)

Continuing the effort by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government to downplay a breach of Armenia’s national border, the country’s National Security chief, Alen Simonyan, on Friday seemingly defended the Azerbaijani soldier who walked into a residence in the Syunik Province and shot a woman and held her children at gunpoint.

Simonyan told reporters on Friday that the Azerbaijani soldier, Nasimi Musayev, shot and seriously injured the resident of the Shaki village in Syunik, Ani Avetisyan, because he feared for his life.

In recounting the incident, Avetisyan said that she and her family feared for their life, because Musayev was going to kill them. She told Azatutyun.am on Monday that she was in nearby Sisian when one of her children called to alert her about an intruder in their house. Avetisyan then rushed to the house and found that Musayev was holding her children at gunpoint.

Simonyan, on the other hand, rationalized that Musayev was lost, and might have been suffering from medical issues.

“He got lost—what else could have happened? The man got lost,” Simonyan told reporters, saying that Azerbaijanis had informed the Armenian government that one of their soldiers had left his unit in Lachin. Simonyan went on to say that Azerbaijani presidential adviser Hikmet Hajiyev has assured him that “as far as they [Azerbaijanis] are concerned, he [Musayev] has committed a criminal offense.”

Simonyan similarly downplayed Hajiyev’s earlier efforts to characterize Armenian monasteries in occupied Artsakh as having Caucasian Albanian provenance.

Simonyan also shared details regarding the time the Azerbaijani soldier spent in Shaki. however, he did not disclose the source of this information, nor did he reveal whether he had reviewed the records of Musayev’s interrogation.

“The house was empty; he went in, ate some food, then lay down and fell asleep… As far as I understand, he was either wounded or had some health issue. It is a simple criminal offense. The term ‘intrude’ implies that there is resistance—that you are struggling against someone. He got lost—and, heaven forbid, it could happen… many people from our side have also gotten lost and ended up over there,” Simonyan said.

In response to the observation that individuals from the Armenian side who get lost do not go on to open fire on civilians, the Secretary of the Security Council remarked that “it depends on the situation,” and then cited examples of street disputes that often take place in Yerevan, but do not involve the breach of the national and sovereign borders of Armenia.

“Not all crimes escalate to physical violence. On the streets of Yerevan, people might end up stabbing each other over something as trivial as honking a horn, or they might simply exchange an insult and drive off. In this case, he arrived, people got scared, he got scared in return—he is essentially a criminal who will be prosecuted in accordance with Armenian legislation,” Simonyan said failing to address the question of how an Azerbaijani serviceman managed to reach the village of Shaki, located approximately eight miles from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Avetisyan’s recounting of the events of October 1 are in stark contrast to Simonyan’s dismissive approach.

“If I hadn’t acted at that moment, neither I nor the children would have been alive now,” Avetisyan said, speaking at a hospital in Yerevan where she is being treated for her injuries caused by two of at least three bullets fired by Musayev.

“I stepped forward, he saw me, pointed [his assault rifle] at me, fired a shot and missed,” Avetisyan told Azatutyun. “I stepped further forward … He pointed the gun at my son to shoot him. I pulled it away with my hand which got injured [by a second shot.]”

“Then he threw me onto the bed and started hitting me,” Avetisyan said. “That’s when I started fighting back. I told my daughter to go open the gate. I tried to get my son out too, but he wouldn’t leave. At that point, [Musayev] pointed the gun at my chest, intending to shoot, but I forcefully pushed the weapon down, and [a third gunshot] hit my foot.”

In her wounded state, Avetisyan managed to stab Musayev with a kitchen knife before he fled the house and was caught shortly afterward. She lost one of her fingers and needs to undergo more surgeries on her fractured foot in a hospital in Yerevan.

Avetisyan said that although she called the local police just before rushing to Shaki from the nearby town of Sisian, police officers arrived in her house at least five minutes after Musayev had fled. Sisian’s police station is closer to Shaki than a local hotel where she was first notified of the intrusion.

This pattern of downplaying the border breach and essentially blaming the victim started when Pashinyan addressed the matter in parliament, telling lawmakers that Avetisyan should not have acted to protect her family and should have waited until law enforcement personnel arrived at her home.