Russian arms transfer to Armenia alleged (or "Командкещи подарил акаСии")

Azeri complaints about Russian support for Armenia appear to be back in vogue - this may be another sign we have in fact cleared the post-9/11/01-period and are now in post-8/8/08 period that as far as Caucasus is concerned is more like the post-1991 and pre-2001 period of Russian regional military hegemony (and low oil prices!).

On January 8, MediaForum.az uploaded what looks like a two-page secret unsigned undated attachment on the letterhead of a Russian general – Viacheslav Golovchenko, deputy commander of the Russian forces in the Caucasus - that lists the types of weapons allegedly transferred from Russian base in Armenia to Armenian defense ministry.

The alleged document (in Russian below) contains a couple of grammatical errors and typos: specifically the words АкаЦия and Командующий are misspelled. This may be either because the alleged document is a forgery or just a legitimate scanning error.

UPDATE from a colleague: Two more typos found "катИгория" instead of "категория," and "гранатАмет" instead of "гранатомет." This makes it look more like a forgery.

The document lists as transferred: 21 tanks; 61 armored combat vehicles; 50 units of self-propelled and towed artillery; 9 MLRS systems; various air defense systems; light weapons; ammunition stockpiles; and equipment.

Nothing extraordinary and in relatively modest amount especially compared to massive acquisitions advertised by Azerbaijan in recent years.

If it is a real document, it most likely ended up in Azerbaijan as a result of being handed over by the Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdiukov who was in Baku in December for annual talks on bilateral defense cooperation.

Earlier in 2008, Russia reported to the United Nations that it transferred dozens of tanks and armored vehicles to Azerbaijan.

If it in fact occurred, this Russia to Armenia transfer may have been in part to offset deliveries to Azerbaijan.

But unlike their Armenian colleagues, Azeri media is seeking to make this into a big story having promptly converted the equipment list to an inflated dollar figure presumably for easy use in a PR campaign in the West (in a manner similar to the "1 billion dollar" campaign of the 1990s).

Members of the Azeri ruling clique have internalized the transfer as fact and branded it as a "scandal," "illegal," "sign of aggression" and "unfair."

Azeris threaten Armenia with ballistic missiles, cluster munitions

First published in July 5, 2008 Armenian Reporter.

Azerbaijan parades newly acquired military arsenal
Missiles shown put Yerevan within striking distance
News analysis by Emil Sanamyan

WASHINGTON – In an unusually candid display of military technology that combined Soviet-era grandeur with Azerbaijan’s increasingly Middle Eastern flair, President Ilham Aliyev showed off newly acquired missile systems and spy planes in a grand parade held in Baku last week.

In contrast to combat aircraft already known to have been in Azerbaijan’s possession, the new systems’ characteristics make them more difficult for the Armenian armed forces to deal with successfully.

New missile threat

According to television footage and photos available online, the June 26 parade included at least three of the late-Soviet-model SS-21 tactical surface-to-surface ballistic missiles known in the West as “Scarab” and in Russia as "Tochka."

Depending on specific modifications, SS-21s are capable of delivering payloads of 482 kilograms, which could be either conventional or containing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), to distances between 15 and 120 kilometers, landing with deadly accuracy of between several to 50 meters.

Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan, is located within 70 kilometers of Azerbaijani-controlled Nakhichevan and within 100 kilometers of the Kedabek district of Azerbaijan, bordering on Armenia’s Gegharkunik province, putting the city within SS-21 reach from both directions.

Under international agreements, Azerbaijan – along with other states – is required to report on any such military acquisitions. No such declarations were made through the the United Nations Register of Conventional Weapons as of August 2007, suggesting that the acquisition was either recent or made without notification.

According to a 2005 Carnegie Endowment study, “World Missile Chart,” following the Soviet collapse, SS-21 systems were inherited by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia. (In the early- to mid-1980s, older variants had also been supplied to Syria and Yemen.)

Of these countries, Ukraine has been the most active supplier of weapons systems to Azerbaijan.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Boris Klimchuk, confirmed to Novosti-Azerbaijan that most of the equipment paraded on June 26 was supplied by Ukraine.

Also shown at the parade were at least six multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) known in Russian as Smerch (see the March 27, 2007, issue of the Armenian Reporter for a story about their acquisition from Ukraine). That deadly system, with a range of over 70 kilometers, was paraded along with other smaller-caliber and shorter-range non-Soviet MLRS systems that appeared Israeli or Turkish in origin.

Israeli-made spy planes

Other systems whose acquisition had not been made public prior to the parade were two types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), both made by Israel’s Aeronautics Defense Systems (ADS).

UAVs have been prominent in the regional news lately after Georgia purchased about 40 Hermes-450 systems made by Israel’s Elbit Systems and several of them were reported shot down over Abkhazia since last spring. UAVs are relatively inexpensive systems capable of supplying round-the-clock battlefield reconnaissance while evading many of the traditional air defense systems.

Per video and photography from the Azerbaijani parade, the systems shown were not Elbit’s but ADS’ short-range Orbiter and midrange Aerostar UAVs.

According to www.IsraeliWeapons.com, Orbiter is a very light system that military personnel could transport in backpacks and assemble for launch within 10 minutes.

Operated remotely, it has a range of 15 kilometers, providing real-time intelligence to brigade or smaller-sized units.

First introduced in 2000, Aerostar is believed to be superior to the older Hermes-450. Aerostar, similar in appearance to popular Cessna aircraft, has an operational range of 200 kilometers, which can potentially put Armenia’s entire territory under surveillance.

Both the SS-21 and the other newly acquired missile systems and the UAVs provide a greater challenge than earlier systems did to the mostly ground-based Armenian air defenses. They may thus help tip the existing military balance and undermining the 14-year-old cease-fire.

Lukewarm international reaction

There has been no public Armenian or international reaction to systems shown in the militaristic display. Of major news outlets, only the Reuters news agency carried a report, pointing, as usual, to a potential disruption of 700,000 barrels a day in oil supplies should fighting resume.

Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Seyran Shahsuvaryan was not impressed, telling PanArmenian.net on June 28 that his agency viewed the parade as a “festivity” organized for the local population and foreign guests.

Since 1998 Azerbaijan has marked June 26 as a day of its army because on that day in 1918, the Ottoman Turkish army divisions advancing into the Caucasus and led by Nuri Pasha (younger brother of Enver Pasha, the Ottoman war minister) were renamed “Azerbaijani national army.”

In all, according to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, the parade involved 25 combat aircraft (including several MiG-29s acquired in Ukraine), 19 helicopters, 31 navy vessels, and 210 units of ground equipment, including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled and towed artillery, and air defense systems. Various special forces and cadets of ground, air, and naval military academies were among about 4,500 personnel taking part.

Writing for Novosti-Azerbaijan on June 27, Azerbaijani journalist and Karabakh war veteran Kamal Ali could not hide his excitement.

“Even a quick look at the military equipment shown in the June 26 parade assures one of the offensive nature of Azerbaijan’s war machine,” he wrote. “Nearly all of this equipment was created for an effective attacks and annihilation of a defending opponent.”

Certainly, the parade last week did send a message to Armenia and cannot be treated solely as a “festivity.”

Equipment shown and the manner of its acquisition should have real military and political repercussions both for Armenian armed forces and foreign policy.

Karabakh status quo - how much longer?

First published in June 7, 2008 Armenian Reporter.

Can Armenia and Azerbaijan sustain the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh?
News analysis by Emil Sanamyan

STEPANAKERT – On June 6, Serge Sargsian and Ilham Aliyev will have held their first presidential meeting. While seen as a mere formality, the rendezvous sets up yet another fork in the road in the 20-year history of the Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontation.

By now there are few expectations of a negotiated peace deal or even agreement on basic principles for such an agreement. The sides are rigidly dug into their mutually exclusive positions. One side wants to retain Karabakh and formalize its reunification with Armenia. The other is seeking to restore its Soviet-era borders and heal its hurt pride.

While the conflict had violently escalated for the first six years (1988-94) it has been largely conserved for the last fourteen. The main question of today is if this conservation will continue to last or if violence would break out in some form.

The peace process: how much longer?

As has been the case with Armenian-Azerbaijani presidential meetings since after the April 2001 Key West summit dedicated to the Karabakh settlement, this week’s meetings takes place on sidelines of a larger international forum the two presidents are attending anyway. This time it is the post-Soviet economic forum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

President Aliyev, Jr. and ex-President Robert Kocharian have had seven such meetings between 2004 and 2007, providing the political blessing for sustained negotiations between the two countries’ foreign ministers.

The peace process, while failing to culminate in any agreement, has provided both leaders with added international recognition and domestic legitimacy. And importantly it has helped “explain” why, in spite of all the heated rhetoric, Azerbaijan is not going back to war just yet.

Azeri officials, at least publicly, still hope that Armenians might give up without a fight. That increasingly remote possibility may have taken a new lease on life because Azeris view the return to active politics of ex-President Levon Ter-Petrossian in the context of his past Karabakh policy rather than Armenia’s domestic developments.

The second important self-explanation for Azerbaijan is that the next several years would mean more money recovered from Caspian offshore energy resources and more weapon systems bought and mastered.

This is also the view endorsed by conflict watchers around the world, including the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), which in an analysis last year predicted that chances for war may increase significantly in 2012 when Azerbaijan’s oil production begins to taper off.

The last, but possibly the most important explanation, on why the cease-fire has held is the Armenian military’s capability to retaliate against Azerbaijani interests.

In his remarks on May 23 and again in an interview on June 5, NKR President Bako Sahakian warned that should Azerbaijan launch a military aggression, the Armenian side will be forced to take the fighting “deep into [Azerbaijan’s] territory,” adding that “expansion of the security zone [comprising former Azeri districts around Karabakh] will be the only way for us to secure peace for our people.”

The stark warning is atypical of Armenian leaders and also reflects Azerbaijan’s expanded ability to escalate things along the Line of Contact without resorting to an outright war.

Even the mediators’ focus appears to be shifting from discussing complicated Karabakh status formulas and territorial arrangements to sustaining the cease-fire and preventing new bloodshed through practical measures along the Line of Contact.

New potential for [localized] military escalation

With conclusion of the on the ground military operations in May 1994, when Baku finally agreed to a cease-fire agreement since then made permanent, the Azerbaijani government has sought to find ways to put foreign diplomatic pressure on Armenians to force them into unilateral territorial compromises.

Dubbed the “oil strategy” by then President Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijanis staked their hopes on their relative importance to the West and Armenia’s apparently bleak economic prospects.

In that they scored a partial success at the OSCE’s Lisbon Summit in December 1996, where Armenia was left alone in not recognizing Azerbaijan’s claims on Nagorno Karabakh. Then President Ter-Petrossian’s advocacy for unilateral territorial compromises in 1997-98 reflected the peak of the success of the Aliyev Sr.’s strategy.

President Kocharian’s ascendancy has helped alter that dynamic. In the ten-year period, Armenia has succeeded in establishing that its economic development and integration with the West can proceed without unilateral territorial compromises in Karabakh.

Increased economic affluence of both Armenia and Azerbaijan has also made going to an outright war an increasingly unattractive proposition.

But the Armenian-Azerbaijan confrontation appears to be nearing a fresh turning point. Azerbaijan seems to have exhausted its diplomatic options with the United Nations General Assembly resolution last March. And the very acquisition of new weapons systems makes it tempting for Aliyev to escalate military pressure on Armenia without resorting to costly ground operations.

In the past ten years, tactical military escalation has meant primarily spikes in sniper war and small-scale tactical redeployments along the Line of Contact, with the March 3 skirmish at Levonarkh in Karabakh’s northeast as the latest example.

Today, Azerbaijan’s acquisition of modern aircraft and longer-range artillery systems may encourage its leaders to resort to new and more dramatic forms of military escalation.

These may include attempts to overfly Armenian territory, attacks against Armenian air and ground targets, and even engaging in long-distance artillery duels – all in the effort to put pressure on the local population to flee and up the ante for the Armenian state.

The Armenian side has made clear that such steps would be met with retaliation and would risk an all-out war which both sides are so far seeking to avoid. At the same time, such warnings have not been matched by a sustained diplomatic campaign to restrain Azerbaijan.

Judging by Azerbaijan’s accelerated military acquisitions and evolution of similarly protracted conflicts around the world, the fourteen-year peace enjoyed by Armenians and Azerbaijanis increasingly stands out as an oddity rather than the norm and appears to be nearing a tipping point.

Briefly: Army Day in DC; Bush gives weight to Edmonds vs. Turkey in nuclear deal, proposes FY09 budget, Congress mostly mum on anti-Armenian vandalism

This was first published in February 9, 2008 Armenian Reporter

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

Inset: Armenian Army Day in Washington

More than a hundred guests, mostly U.S. civilian and military officials and foreign
defense attachés attended the annual Armenian Armed Forces Day at the
Armenian Embassy in Washington on Jan. 31. Pictured: World War II, Korea,
and Vietnam veteran and U.S. Army Col. (ret.) George Juskalian (seated) with
Armenia’s Defense Attaché Col. Armen Sargsyan (standing on right) and Armenian
Defense Ministry public affairs officer Capt. Hayk Markosyan.

President Bush OK’s nuclear deal with Turkey, cites earlier proliferation concerns

President George W. Bush approved last month the July 2000 “Agreement for Cooperation between the United States of America and the Republic of Turkey Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy,” and has transmitted it to Congress for ratification.

According to January 23 press release from the White House, Mr. Bush argued that the agreement would serve as “a strong incentive” for U.S.–Turkish relations and “provide the necessary legal framework for U.S. industry to make nuclear exports to Turkey’s planned civil nuclear sector.” The agreement would not allow transfers of “sensitive” nuclear technology or data.

The presidential message indirectly gives further weight to allegations made by former Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) translator Sibel Edmonds, most recently
published in The Times of London (see this page in the February 2 Armenian Reporter).

The message says that then-president Bill Clinton first authorized the agreement shortly before its signing in July 2000, but that “immediately after signature, U.S. agencies received information. . . implicating Turkish private entities in certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation” and the agreement therefore was not submitted to Congress.

The message further noted that the Bush administration has now evaluated the “actions taken by the Turkish government to address the proliferation activities of certain Turkish entities (once officials of the U.S. Government brought them to the Turkish government’s attention)” and found that “the pertinent issues have been sufficiently resolved and that there is a sufficient basis . . . to proceed with congressional review of the Agreement.”

Turkey suspended its nuclear energy program just days after the July 2000 determination, but has recently renewed its interest.

Last month, Energy Minister Hilmi Guler announced plans to conclude by next June an international tender to build a nuclear power plant. According to Turkish media, companies from Canada, France, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States are expected to bid.

President Bush’s decision came just weeks after his talks with visiting Turkish president Abdullah Gul, who was accompanied by Mr. Guler.

Administration again requests cut in aid to Armenia

President Bush sent his more than $3 trillion budget request to Congress this week. In it, he requested a further aid cut to Armenia, no funds for Nagorno-Karabakh, and more military assistance to Azerbaijan.

The administration’s draft for the Fiscal Year 2009 budget, which is due to be scrutinized by congressional appropriators later this year, requested $24 million in economic and $3.3 million in military aid to Armenia, as well as $3.9 million in military aid to Azerbaijan. (Armenia is also a recipient of a separate $235 million Millennium Challenge Assistance program.)

The administration also proposed $52 million to Georgia and nearly $20 million to Azerbaijan, levels virtually unchanged from what Congress approved last year. In Fiscal Year 2008 Congress approved $58.5 million in economic assistance to Armenia and $3 million in military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan each.

The administration further revealed that in spite of congressional allocation that called for parity in military aid, particularly under International Military Education and Training, the United States in fact provided $952,000 to Azerbaijan and
only $286,000 to Armenia in FY2008.

Armenian-American organizations expressed opposition to the proposed cuts.

“Given Azerbaijan’s increased war rhetoric, I have strong concerns with giving any military aid to Azerbaijan, and we definitely should not give them more than we’re providing Armenia,” senior congressional appropriator Joe Knollenberg (R.-Mich.) was quoted as saying on February 4 by the Armenian Assembly of America. He is co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues.

“I will work with my colleagues to ensure that Armenia has the resources needed to continue to strengthen its democracy as well as ensure its security,” Mr. Knollenberg added.

Congress to condemn construction at historic cemetery in Lithuania

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will next week consider a resolution that reaffirms “the U.S. commitment to preservation of religious and cultural sites and
condemning instances where sites are desecrated.” House Resolution 255 is co-sponsored by the committee’s ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R.-Fla.), Reps. Joe
Crowley (D.-N.Y.) and Michael Ferguson (R.-N.J.) (all three are Armenian caucus members) and is expected to be marked up on February 14.

The proposed resolution singles out continued construction within the boundaries of a historic Jewish cemetery (13th to early 19th century) in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius and warns that unless construction is immediately stopped by the Lithuanian government, “it will jeopardize its important relationship with the United States and its standing in the international community.”

While individual members of Congress, particularly Armenian Caucus co-chair Frank Pallone, Jr. (D.-N.J.) have spoken out about the destruction of historic Armenian
cemeteries in Azerbaijan, no congressional legislation followed.

And there has so far been little or no reaction to the ongoing construction over Baku’s Armenian cemetery, where many Russians, Jews, and Azerbaijanis are also buried.

ANCA to co-sponsor congressional advocacy campaign next month

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) announced on February 7 that together with the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-Net) it will co-sponsor Capitol
Hill advocacy days between from March 12 to 14.

The two organizations partnered for a similar initiative last year “to encourage U.S. action to stop the genocide in Darfur, the adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution (S.Res.106 / H.Res.106), and the strengthening of U.S. resolve to act against all instances of genocide.”

connect: http://www.anca.org/stopgenocide

Group campaigns for environment in Armenia

Concerns over threats to the environment and public health were the focus of a public lecture organized by the Armenian Environmental Network (AEN) and held at
the World Bank on February 6.

Johns Hopkins University professor George Jakab and Dr. Charles Dunlap of the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation discussed the results of their fieldwork in Armenia and criticized lack of quick government response to environmental and health risks to the public.

The speakers noted dangerously high levels of lead found in Yerevan fountains, in which children often swim, as well as three of the Lake Sevan beaches. The contamination is linked to the tourist infrastructure that has sprung up around the lake in recent years.

AEN Director Ursula Kazarian said that public health was not a hot enough topic to attract adequate funding. “The government does not want to put up up-front costs even though resolving these [public health] problems will save them money in the long run,” she said.

AEN was set up last year to promote environmental awareness throughout the diaspora.
connect: www.armenvironment.net

—Alexa Millinger contributed to this week’s column

Armenian officer wounded in Iraq recalls his experience

Published in April 14, 2007 Armenian Reporter

Armenian officer wounded in Iraq recalls his experience
* Senior Lieutenant Georgi Nalbandian looking to return to army service

For about a month 25-year-old Senior Lieutenant (Sr. Lt.) Georgi Nalbandian of the Armenian Army has been at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. He was seriously wounded in action in Iraq on November 11, 2006. Our Washington Editor Emil Sanamyan sat down with the officer on April 11 to write down his story. “From everything I’ll say, you’ll see that I am both lucky and unlucky,” he said.

“I am from the town of Ararat originally. There I finished school in 1998 and enrolled in the Military Engineering Academy in Moscow. That September I began my first year. After graduating from the Academy with only A’s and B’s I was commissioned a lieutenant in the Armenian Army in 2003.

From then on and until November 2005, I served in the Vayk-based regiment of the 4th Army Corps – this is a forward deployed combat unit [on the border with Azerbaijan-controlled Nakhichevan]. I was then transferred to the Military De-Mining Center in Echmiadzin. After nine months there I on my own initiative volunteered to serve in Iraq as a commander of a de-mining team. We were the fourth rotation going to Iraq in July 2006 for a six-month period.”

First Armenian servicemen arrived in Iraq in January 2005, where they continue to serve under Polish command in the multi-national division in central and southern Iraq.

"We arrived in the town of al-Kut. There was not anything special going on at the time. But we did get decent combat assignments. We dealt primarily with unexploded ordinance that all over the place there. We found and destroyed that ammunition.

Along with soldiers from El Salvador we helped secure the coalition military base in al-Kut, to make sure none of the improvised explosive devices (IED’s) got inside the base perimeter.

And together with Polish soldiers we drove out on field reconnaissance missions in the area. My job was to make sure key bridges were not rigged and again to find the unexploded ordinance. We got attacked once at the time, but the explosion was in the front of the vehicle and we did not take casualties. That was the first time.”

What about that day?

“No, that happened at night. I remember it all. All the way to the hospital’s operating room. We had an assignment to check out this area of an ammunition dump. Previously we reconnoitered that area with the Poles. As we realized, what we found was the Iraqi army ammunition storage. Much of it was destroyed in the [U.S.] aerial bombing. But there was still a lot of stuff still unexploded lying around, including mines, 155-mm missiles, artillery shells, grenades, anything you can imagine, I can’t really list it all. It was a large area of about 300 by 400 meters, with stuff lying around quite densely.

We needed to clean that area up since there was evidence that terrorists were coming in, taking some of that ammunition out to presumably use it either directly or make it into IED’s. We could see the tracks from their digging. It was clear there were not looking for lost treasures there.

So that morning of November 10, at about eight in the morning, I guided a group of Slovak soldiers on five Humvees and several Czechoslovak-made Tatra armored vehicles with a de-mining machine in tow to that area, to tell them what is where, so that they could begin with the clean up. The place was about three kilometers off the main road. You needed to take one of several gravel paths that had been cleared previously.

We got in safely and they proceeded to destroy some of the anti-personnel mines there and were generally assessing what could be done with that place. There was no system of any kind, with various ordinance lying everywhere, so they were trying to find a way to organize their work.

The plan was to go in for half a day, so we did not really bring along much in the way of water or food. Just days earlier Saddam was sentenced to death and there was apprehension there might be an increase in attacks. So by 2 p.m. we began to move out. We could not turn the convoy around and had to take another road. But as we started moving those big Tatras began to sink into the gravel that in some places became really powdery from all the explosions. As we tried to pull out some of the vehicles, others would sink in. It was a comic situation really.

By 6 or 7 it gets dark there and dangerous. We called in reinforcements from the base. Salvadoran soldiers on four more Humvees arrived along with a crane. Salvadorans secured the perimeter around the convoy. But that crane too got stuck. Then U.S. and Iraqi special forces arrived with even a bigger crane – that was a really powerful machine that pulled almost all of the vehicles out, but then itself got stuck. So it got even funnier.

In the end, it was already past 1 a.m., we got the order that those that had been at that dump since the morning, and we were really dead tired by then, could go back to the base. The others would stay until the remaining vehicles are pulled out.

I got into the back seat of one of the Polish vehicles together with a Slovak. A full moon was out, so we turned off the headlights not to draw attention to the convoy. We talked a little, but I remember I was falling asleep. I was asleep.

It was a miracle or what, I don’t know, but it was as if someone pushed me a second or two before the explosion – as if I sensed it was coming. Instinctively, I drew my hands to cover my face and the next thing to happen is explosion ripping us apart.

I would typically have gloves on my hands, but I took the left one off to hold up the MRE (the U.S. Army-issued Meal Ready to Eat) that we just had, and forgot to put it back on. So I lost the skin on this hand.”

Nalbandian points to the burn covering much of his left hand.

“I saw that flame – on sunny days I still can’t go outside without sunglasses – heard the screams, felt the heat. So I realized I was OK, I was not dead.

(The Polish driver and Slovak sitting next to me were killed in the explosion. The other Pole sitting next to the driver was hit in the knee and has since had trouble walking.)

I moved my legs – the left one was heavy, the right one also felt like it was there. I looked up and saw bullet traces coming in and realized we were being ambushed. I heard the shooting, the Humvee kept moving, but the heat was getting worse and I couldn’t breath. I started feeling around trying to find my machine gun. I would always keep it next to my left leg, but I couldn’t find it. I started to suffocate, opened the door and tried to jump out, pushing with my right leg and that’s when I saw I had no right leg left and blood was gushing out of where it used to be.

I fell on the ground, with my right leg left under the driver’s seat. I was in shock and for a moment began to think that was all a dream and nothing had happened. But then the pain began and I realized my other leg was on fire. I put it out and took cover.

The Humvee stopped a few meters away. By then our large caliber machine guns opened up, and it sounded like the enemy began to disperse, at least they could not fire at us anymore. I waived my hand, calling out that I was still alive and needed help.

They ran up to me with a stretcher. The medevac vehicle was right behind me, so they quickly took me in and brought me to al-Kut. Our base doctor Major Vigen Tatentsian met us at the gate and began to stick me with needles with painkillers, IV and whatever else I don’t know. They took my clothes off. I was losing a lot of blood and couldn’t breath so they stuck a tube into my throat.

In just ten minutes or so, an American helicopter arrived to take me to the hospital in Baghdad. By then I was heavily medicated, so it felt like the normally 45-minute flight from al-Kut only took a few minutes. I was losing consciousness, they were bringing me back out. I was really thirsty, but they could only give me a wet cloth – it was not even a drop of water.

As soon as we reached the Baghdad hospital they operated. I remember those three round medical lamps above me. They gave me another incision and everything I ate that day came out of me. I was high on morphine and wondered what these ten people in white were doing around me. They kept sticking me with needles. And after one incision I felt completely paralyzed. I couldn’t even move my eyes. It really felt like death. Then I either fell asleep or lost consciousness, I don’t know.

When I came to, Captain David Gyozalian, who is our liaison officer in Baghdad, was next to me. I was still high on morphine, so I was laughing and smiling. He told me that they cleaned the wound and would be taking me to a hospital in Germany in the next three hours.”

All coalition soldiers wounded in Iraq, after receiving first aid and emergency surgery, are evacuated to the U.S. military bases in Germany for further treatment.

“The pain kept coming back, so I asked for morphine and sleeping pills, and I really already woke up in Germany after a six-hour flight. Then there was a second surgery and four more surgeries soon after. Those three weeks I could hardly move even in the bed. Pain continued, including the phantom pain - that was really bad. By the end of that third week I for the first time got into a wheelchair and got tired really quickly.

Our officers based at NATO in Brussels, Colonel David Tonoyan and Major Mher Israelian, would visit me almost every week. Special thanks to them, make sure you write about them, they helped bring me back to life. Talking to the doctors, everything. They were constantly there and brought me anything I needed.

The Defense Minister, who is now Prime Minister Serge Sargsian, called two days after I arrived in Germany. His Deputies have been calling since then. General Seyran Ohanian, the commander of the Karabakh army, who had a similar wound during the war, and has a prosthetic and gets around fine, also called.

My brother came to visit for three days. (I did not want my mom to come see me in that condition, so I asked for my brother to come.) He is also an officer with the Defense Ministry. My cousin who is a professional soccer player for one of the clubs in Finland also came to visit.

Then doctors began talking about moving me to U.S. for rehabilitation treatment. And as I was about to go it got postponed and then the chief doctor said that I would stay in Germany, at the U.S. military medical center in Landstuhl. There were probably some financial reasons or something, so they first decided to keep me in Germany. All other wounded coalition soldiers, Romanians, Latvians, others were treated there and fitted with prosthetics. I got my first prosthetic leg before the New Year. There were some problems with it, but nothing that could not be resolved.

But then all of a sudden they told me they would put me on the plane to U.S. for further treatment and rehabilitation. It was just as the news about Walter Reed was all over television. I finally arrived here at Walter Reed on March 9.”

Sr. Lt. Nalbandian is very happy with the treatment at Walter Reed, where he is the only non-American servicemen that he knows of at this time. What about the recent scandal around Walter Reed?

“I didn’t personally sense any of that. I spent a week in the hospital ward for amputees – there were no problems and the care was excellent. I didn’t even see any evidence of recent repairs or anything. So, I don’t really know what the whole issue was about. I heard that one or two doctors were not doing their work and were disciplined. But that was before my arrival.

They are now fitting me with a new prosthetic. With the one I have now, I can walk quite well and even run. But I can’t walk up the stairs. The new prosthetic would give me more agility. They also said they would give me additional prosthetics for running, for swimming and also one as a replacement.

They are treating me as one of their own.”

There are Armenian doctors here at the hospital, one is a surgeon, another psychologist, Sr. Lt. Nalbandian said.

“They invited me over to their homes, including for Easter. Other local Armenians came to visit me and took me to the local Armenian Church the other week. So, I don’t have to stay in the room and watch TV on weekends. I use Skype to call my brother in Armenia – we talk almost every day.

And of course, the Embassy here, Ambassador Tatoul Markarian and Defense Attache Colonel Armen Sargsian met me as I arrived here, and they and others from the Embassy continue to visit and helping me out.”

And what will he do after the treatment?

“I want to go back into the service. I always tell everyone, what happened to me is nothing. Things are fine – I can walk, run, swim, drive a car. What’s the difference? I am a fully functioning person, it’s not like I am missing both legs.

I want to go back on active duty. If I see that I can’t handle the physical aspect of the service in the field, I’ll request a transfer to headquarters – there is enough work there too. There are plenty of combat officers in Armenia with prosthetics who serve both in the field and in the headquarters.”