“This is astonishing. Our artillery was shooting us from behind, and the Turks from the front,” says Rustam Gasparyan's brother

I am the brother of legendary commander Rustam Gasparyan of the "Black Panther" detachment and a comrade, whom I left with his son in Hadrut. In a conversation with Aravot.am, Serob Gasparyan, who has just returned from the front lines, presents astonishing incidents from Artsakh and the days of war.

"On the first day we received the news, a battalion of contract soldiers was holding positions with 300 members of the "Black Panther" detachment. Right from the first day they established communication, saying that the Turks had captured a position, we have 5 dead, and we cannot retrieve the bodies. My brother, Rustam Gasparyan, contacted the Ministry of Defense, I won't name names, but they will hear it and know, we pleaded and begged, we had gathered another battalion of volunteers and told them to take us to reclaim those positions, to retrieve the bodies. They did not allow us, but we had two battalions of contract soldiers here. We sent them, and until they reached the Karvachar positions, no assistance arose, for several hours. Our boys reached out for help. On the third day, after reclaiming those positions, our boys—"the Panthers"—again suffered 3 dead. In total in Karvachar, there were airplanes, artillery, drones, and we lost 16 men. And we were not allowed to go and assist our boys," he noted.

As for the reasoning provided, Gasparyan conveyed: "They explained it by saying, ‘You are not needed, we are gathering a mob,’ but they had gathered that mob on the first day and sent it back. On the second day, we forced them in anger to let us go to the border. ‘We are reaching the site, in the middle of the night they take us to positions. They lift our boys to the positions with Kamaz trucks, and in those positions, we see no one. We understand that something is being done intentionally; there is no one beside us, no one to explain where we are. Remembering our previous paths, we realize that likely in front of us is Omar, to our side is Karvachar, to the other side is Talish, and we don’t understand whether the Turk is coming from behind or in front. Behind there is a ravine; in front we don’t know who is there.’

Gasparyan indicated that conditions were being created on the front line to make it seem that the people had been betrayed, leading them to retreat. “On the first day after that infamous paper was signed, the Prime Minister gave a speech, saying there were traitors, there was panic, they didn’t go to fight. I forbid you to speak of the fighting boys, Mr. Prime Minister. It is true there were those who fled back in the 90s, but now you have created the situation that people run away. People didn’t know where they were and where to expect the Turk from. We had no means of communication at all, to find out from post to post, you had to run to ask, ‘Who shot and what was it for, from the front was it equipment or regular manpower?’”

Gasparyan stated that when he heard the Prime Minister’s speech, it had become clear to him that as Commander-in-Chief, he was absent, does not exist: "They could not organize the war in any way. We, our boys did not retreat a single centimeter. All we needed was to be provided with the weapons we needed, which were absent. We were finding weapons from the forests, picking up strelas from the dirt. There was no organizer. We say let’s take Hadrut, they said retreat, to our neighboring soldiers, to the police, they hold us, saying wait here, two battalions are coming, and it was a lie. I was taking my brother down to the hospital in Stepanakert, I want to go back to ensure my brother’s son, the doctor, that the bodies don’t get left with the Turks, our boys are calling, saying we are bringing them, don’t come back, and I meet the reconnaissance boys in the hospital, saying, ‘We reported 4 hours ago that the Turks have surrounded you.’ And they didn’t tell us. Deliberately. To create panic."

Serob Gasparyan recounted witnessing things that astonished him: "I saw something so astonishing, without naming the places, but our artillery was shooting us from behind, and the Turkish artillery from the front; this is astonishing. We establish contact with our artillery and ask what is happening, they say, ‘it’s a navigation issue, we are shooting from there.’”

Serob Gasparyan conveyed the last words of one of the soldiers before he fell, who said before dying: “I want to direct the request of a hero boy who fell in Mataghis to our government. He was surrounded and called on his phone asking to convey his words to the Prime Minister. No assistance was reaching him, he told my brother, ‘Please, Commander, when you go to Armenia, tell our leadership why they don’t love us... and he fell.’ I am absolutely sure he is now listening from the heavens as I pass on his message."

Why did the soldier realize before his death that he was unloved by the leadership, while he was giving his life for the homeland? Serob Gasparyan explained it this way: “Because they were surrounded and knew well that our artillery would work, they would come out, but... it didn’t work.”