One Year After the War: The Question Remains—Is the Sky Finally Safe or Not?

“JYGON” newspaper reports. “One year has passed since the trilateral statement of the ceasefire on November 9. For 44 days, the community that lived by the slogan ‘We will win’ was surprisingly informed about a painful reality. Apart from the 7 regions that had come under the control of the Armenian armed forces for nearly 30 years, Shushi and Hadrut, which are part of Nagorno-Karabakh, were also handed over to Azerbaijan. Russian peacekeepers were deployed in Artsakh, and Armenia was obliged to provide a land link between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan through its territory.

One year after this tragic event, the first thought that comes to the mind of every Armenian is: what do we have today, and what lessons have we learned, or have we learned at all? Since the infamous statement, which included one point concerning the return of prisoners of war, there are still captives remaining in Baku. Citizens who have been displaced from various regions of Artsakh are alarming about housing issues and their wandering without a roof over their heads. A year later, there are still missing persons and, unfortunately, unburied remains, while soldiers and volunteers who became disabled on the battlefield, having lost limbs, are forced to stand in line at social services to obtain disability status.

One year after the war, the question remains: is the sky finally safe or not? However, it is not just the sky of Artsakh that is in question, but also that of the Republic of Armenia. The unmanned aerial vehicles raining down on us like disasters, not only on the battlefield but also in the rear, burning and turning our brothers and sisters to ashes, still threaten us. Can the air defense system neutralize them at any moment or not? Unfortunately, the answer to all this still hangs in the air like the buzzing of ‘Bayraktars’.”