Defense Army Capt. Artur Aghasyan, first from left was killed in action, while army commander Gen. Jalal Harutyunyan, second from left, was wounded in a drone strike. Social media photo.
Analysis: What Lists of Armenian Dead Tell Us About the War
The Armenian Health Ministry has examined nearly 3,400 remains of servicemen and civilians killed since September 27. This number includes most of the nearly 1,200 remains recovered from the battlefield and Azerbaijani-occupied portions of Artsakh since the November 10 cease-fire. So far, only about 2,000 of those killed have been identified in lists published by the Artsakh Defense Army, the Police, the Soldiers’ Insurance Fund, and the office of the governor of Syunik.
While all of the lists contain inaccuracies and inconsistencies – with a number of individuals mentioned more than once, some names misspelled and some dates of death contradicted by other accounts – the publications nevertheless help illuminate some key aspects of the war, obscured by the war-time government propaganda.
About half of the 2,000 names published are of army conscripts born between the late 1990s and 2002. Most of the rest are of the army officers and active duty contracted personnel. The names published also include about 200 reservists, about 150 volunteers, some 75 police / police forces and about 50 national security / border guard personnel. This seems to confirm previous reports that the regular army received limited additional support in terms of mobilized reserves.
Among senior officers killed were two deputy commanders of the Artsakh Defense Army Col. Artur Sargsyan and Col. Hovanes Avagyan. Also killed was Col. Vahagn Asatryan, commander of Armenia’s special forces brigade, Col. Vyacheslav Voskovsky, commander of the air force squadron, as well as Col. Gegham Gabrielyan, Col. Ashot Ghazaryan and Col. Sergey Shakaryan, deputy commanders of the Defense Army’s southern division. Also among those killed are Col. Artyom Mirzoyan and Col. Vahe Atabekyan of the Armenian police.
Voskovsky’s is among more than a dozen of non-Armenian names in the lists. Others include Maj. Valery Danelin, another pilot of mixed Russian-Armenian descent; contracted serviceman Yevgeny Gorodnichiy; volunteer Rudik Sarkhoshev, draftees Ivan Avdishoyev, Grigor Lemeshko and Aleksandr Nechayev, as well as at least eleven Yezidi Kurdish draftees and volunteers. All are from Armenia.
Among the dead are also four Diaspora repatriates: three from Syria and one, Lebanon-born Kristapor Artin, who moved to Armenia from Canada in 2011; all four were part of the Dashnak volunteer detachment.
The oldest person listed as killed in combat is 71-year-old volunteer Viktor Isunts, who also took part in the first Karabakh war.
The lists also help identify the costliest days of the war for the Armenian side: September 27 – the first day of attack; October 2 – the fighting for Mrav, Talish and Madagis; October 9-10 that followed the unsuccessful Armenian counterattack in the south of Karabakh; and October 13-14, when Armenian forces attempted to break out of the encirclement in Hadrut.
The lists suggest that most of the fighting after mid-October was on the smaller scale, with a few possible exceptions: the defense of the Fizuli garrison on October 18-19, the defense of Martuni and Karmir Shuka on October 28 and the unsuccessful attempt to retake Shushi on November 7.
Bulk of the police were killed on October 4, during the bombing of the Shushi House of Culture, where a meeting of police personnel took place at the time.
These findings are preliminary and are based on incomplete information.