[UPDATE]: Azeri soldier goes AWOL, wanders into Armenia, injures villager before being apprehended

By Alexander Pracht

An Azerbaijani serviceman was arrested in Armenia's Syunik province after crossing the line of contact between the two countries and shooting a local villager in the leg, Armenia's National Security Service reported Thursday.

The agency also reported that Azerbaijani border officers informed their Armenian counterparts on Tuesday that one of Azerbaijan's servicemen had gone absent without leave and might have crossed into Armenia. Two days later, he was apprehended in the village of Shaki in Syunik.

Villagers told local media that Armenian troops had been deployed to the area. The condition of both the shooter and the villager, who is a local woman, remains unknown.

Following the incident, Armenia's Defense Ministry also denied claims that an Armenian serviceman had been killed in the shootout.

No further details about the incident are available so far.

In a similar incident in 2023, two Azerbaijani servicemen crossed into Armenia, one of whom killed a local resident. The two were subsequently exchanged for 32 Armenian prisoners of war later that year.

Update: October 2, 16:30 Yerevan time:

New details have emerged about Thursday’s shooting in the southern Armenian town of Shaki involving an Azerbaijani conscript who went absent without leave and crossed into Armenia.

The soldier, identified by Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities as Nasimi Musayev, reportedly went missing from his military unit near Lachin in Karabakh at least four days before the incident, and on Tuesday, Azerbaijani security agencies informed their Armenian colleagues of this, explicitly saying the conscript might have crossed into Armenia.

Most of the border between the countries is not demarcated and is guarded by military personnel, including conscripts or reservists, sometimes with little training, rather than seasoned border guards.

After receiving the information from Azerbaijan, the Armenian authorities reportedly started searching for the deserter, but due to not knowing any details about his apparent whereabouts, did not manage to locate him.

On Thursday afternoon, he caused a shooting incident in the town of Shaki in the southern Syunik region that saw a local woman by the name of Ani Avetisyan seriously injured and two of her teenage children receiving minor injuries.

The woman's sister has told Radio Free Europe Armenian service that the teenagers came home from school and saw the door of their house unlocked, after which they discovered Musayev sleeping on the couch, holding a firearm. They managed to call their mother before the soldier took the phone away from them.

The mother, reportedly 39 years old, rushed home and found Musayev holding her children at gunpoint.

The sequence that followed is not completely clear, but a struggle followed between the woman and the Azerbaijani soldier, in which three of her fingers were blown off by a shot as she attempted to cover the firearm's muzzle to protect the children, and she was then also shot in the leg.

She then managed to stab the attacker several times with a knife, and the children also engaged the Azerbaijani soldier, resulting in one getting his wrist broken while the other got off with bruises.

The wounded soldier then retreated to a nearby barn, where he was apprehended either by police or local military personnel – the accounts are unclear on this, though local residents reported a military presence in the location.

Musayev was arrested and handed multiple charges, including causing grievous bodily harm, unlawful possession of a firearm, breaking and entering, as well as illegal entry into the country.

The woman was taken to hospital, first in the nearby town of Sisian, and then transported to Yerevan. Doctors have informed local media that the woman's life is not in danger and that she is conscious and responsive.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani media have reported that Musayev might have had a serious confrontation with his fellow servicemen, which could have caused him to desert.

His family was reported to have inquired with both his military unit, Azerbaijan's defense minister and President Ilham Aliyev about what had happened to their son, but received no response, which caused them to stage a demonstration demanding answers.

These reports, circulated in some Azerbaijani publications and on social media, were not reported by major news outlets and state media. Their reports were limited to reprinting the official press release by Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General, which merely reported that charges had been brought against Musayev for desertion.

The investigation remains ongoing.

The incident has raised questions in Armenia regarding border security and how the incident would affect normalization with Azerbaijan, even considering that Baku had warned Armenia of the danger.

The issue also triggered speculation about the possibility of exchanging Musayev for at least some of the Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan.

A similar incident occurred in the same province in 2023, when two Azerbaijani soldiers wandered into Armenian territory; one of them murdered a local Armenian resident. The two were exchanged later that year for 32 Armenian prisoners of war held in Azerbaijan.