Ilham Aliyev: Everyone had already grown accustomed to the fact that we are going forward

“From the very first days of hostilities, we tasted the joy of victory that we had been waiting for so long,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to editor-in-chief of Russian influential “Natsionalnaya oborona” magazine, well-known military expert Igor Korotchenko, Report informs referring to AzerTag.

“I have already said that some settlements were liberated on the very first day. And our society was looking forward to new messages from me on Twitter or through my appeals to the people almost every day. And when this did not happen for several days, they were already thinking: what happened? Everyone had already grown accustomed to the fact that we are going forward, although many, of course, understood that war is an unpredictable thing,” the president said.

“Taking into account the natural terrain, taking into account those fortified areas and the numerous lines of defense, it was very difficult to advance at that pace. Moreover, we planned all our operations in such a way as to carry them out with minimal losses. Therefore, it is also perceived with surprise that a country conducting a counter-offensive operation lost much less than the country that, as they said, was constantly retreating for tactical reasons. So I think that a palette of these factors gave confidence to me, to the army and to the people,” he added.