Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has revealed his conversation with President Ilham Aliyev during the 2020 shooting down of a Russian helicopter in the direction of Nakhchivan during the Patriotic War and the head of state's initial reaction to the incident.

Axar.az reports that in an interview with ITV, Jeyhun Bayramov spoke about the instructions given by President Ilham Aliyev after the incident.

The Minister said the following in his interview:

“That day, very intensive work was underway on the contract. It was already evening, and preparations were underway for its conclusion. The President called and gave instructions. We were working on the text, we were in contact with the Russian Foreign Ministry. It was evening, and the government phone rang. I picked up the phone. The commander of the Air Defense Forces was Ramiz Tahirov. He said that the Minister of Defense also knew about it. He reported that the helicopter had been shot down in the direction of Nakhchivan.

This was not good news, but the war was going on, and information was coming in piecemeal. It turned out that the helicopter belonged to Russia. The pilots were also Russian citizens. This was a serious matter. It was possible to contact Mr. President after seven minutes. By that time, Mr. President already had the information. I would like to specially note his reaction: the President said that he was aware of the incident. He instructed us to immediately prepare an official statement.

The sequence of theses written in the statement was also determined by Mr. President himself: the reasons that led to the incident, military continuation of operations, failure of the helicopter to fly on that route, tragic coincidence, apology and compensation issue”.

The Minister noted that when Azerbaijan issued the statement, no information had yet been published in the Russian media:

“The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry immediately, without delay, without playing games, explained the issue on behalf of the state, apologized, offered condolences and announced its readiness for compensation”.