Russian blogger Yuri Kotenok, wounded in the shelling of the Kazanchetsots cathedral in the city of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh, told the VGTRK correspondent about the details of the shelling and rescue.
“We arrived, our group consisted of three people. It turned out that the explosion took place a few meters away from me, ”said Kitten in the“ Novosti ”program on“ Russia 24 ”on 11 October.
According to Kitten, he was overwhelmed, but he did not lose consciousness. According to him, “it was very hard to breathe” due to the fact that there was a lot of dust in the air from previous attacks on the temple.
The blogger noted that a deacon who prayed for him took him out of the shelling site and thanked everyone who participated in his rescue.
Now the victim is in the intensive care unit of the medical center in Yerevan.
Earlier, on October 8, the Cathedral of Holy Christ the All-Savior Kazanchetsots in Shushi was fired on twice. As a result of the second raid, three Russians were injured – Yuri Kotenok, journalist Levon Arzanov and a member of the accompanying group Hrant Baladyan, who arrived in Karabakh to cover the consequences of the bombing of this temple in the morning.
According to the rector of the cathedral Andreas Tavadyan, the journalists were inside the temple during the attack.
The attending physician of the Kitten Shahen Danielyan noted that the patient had lost 3.5 liters of blood. He has injuries in the chest, abdomen and limbs. On October 10, the press secretary of the Yerevan medical center “Erebuni” Shushan Hunanyan stated that the kitten came out of a coma and was disconnected from the ventilator.
During the first strike on the church on Thursday, no one was injured, but the temple itself was damaged, Armenia said. Azerbaijan reported that it fired only at military targets and “does not target historical, cultural monuments, especially religious ones.”
Another aggravation of the conflict in Karabakh took place on September 27. Armenia and Azerbaijan blamed each other for shelling and death of civilians.
The conflict in Karabakh began in February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR. During the armed confrontation in 1992-1994, Baku lost control over the region and seven adjacent districts. Since 1992, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict have been conducted within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, headed by three co-chairs – Russia, the United States and France.