Courageous AP duo delivers Nagorno-Karabakh coverage
By Mstyslav Chernov and Dmitri Lovetsky
Germany-based video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and Russia-based photographer Dmitri Lovetsky continued their exceptional coverage of the toll that conflict has taken on residents and combatants in Nagorno-Karabakh, as Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over the separatist region. Highlights of their work have included vivid storytelling from inside a hospital overwhelmed by both the war and the pandemic, desperate residents fleeing the fighting and an intimate ritual of young Armenian recruits being baptized before deployment to the battlefield.
Reporting from the heart of the region,Chernov and Lovetsky have worked resourcefully without the assistance of fixers or translators,braving many nights during which the regional capital Stepanakert came under a barrage of Azerbaijani shelling and missile strikes. Their coverage provided the AP, its clients and readers with unique insight into life in Nagorno-Karabakh during the six weeks of the biggest escalation of a decades-old conflict between the two ex-Soviet nations.
Priest Aristakes Hovhannisyan conducts a baptism ceremony for ethnic Armenian soldiers in a military camp near the front line during conflict with Azerbaijan over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 2, 2020. – AP Photo
Explosions erupt in the mountains during fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces outside Stepanakert, capital ofmthe separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 1, 2020. – AP Photo
Ethnic Armenian soldiers walk pass a house destroyed by Azerbaijani shelling in Stepanakert, capital of the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 6, 2020. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said that three civilians were killed in the shelling. – AP Photo
Medical personnel attend wounded soldiers in a hospital in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 8, 2020. Azerbaijan’s president said his forces had taken control of the strategically key city of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh, but an Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman said that fighting in and around Shushi was continuing. – AP Photo
Refugees fleeing fighting in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, en route to Armenia, sit in their minivan at a checkpoint near Vardenis, Armenia, Nov. 7, 2020. – AP Photo
The tail of an unexploded Smerch rocket is partially embedded in a tomb at a cemetery in Stepanakert after shelling by Azerbaijani artillery, Nov. 1, 2020. – AP Photo
A house is heavily damaged after Azerbaijani artillery shelling in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 6, 2020. – AP Photo
A local morgue worker looks at the bodies of shelling victims in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 6, 2020. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said that three civilians were killed by Azerbaijani shelling of the regional capital. – AP Photo
A policeman walks past blood stained stretchers in the yard of the local morgue in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 6, 2020. – AP Photo
A local morgue worker opens the lid of a coffin with the body of a shelling victim in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 6, 2020. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said that three civilians were killed by Azerbaijani shelling of the regional capital. – AP Photo
Ethnic Armenian soldiers walk along a road near the border of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, Nov. 8, 2020. – AP Photo
Ethnic Armenian soldiers ride a vehicle crossing the border between the separtist region of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia near Vardenis, Nov. 8, 2020. – AP Photo
A man waits in his car at a checkpoint near the border between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia as he leaves the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Nov. 8, 2020. – AP Photo
People are stuck in traffic as they leave the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia, Nov. 7, 2020, in an image from AP video. Many thousands of ethnic Armenians were fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijanian forces continue their advance. – AP Image from Video
A man stands near his burning car which caught fire during the climb to a mountain pass near the border between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, Nov. 8, 2020. Ethnic Armenians were fleeing the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani forces advanced. – AP Photo
Since last week’s coverage,Armenia and Azerbaijan have announced an agreement to halt fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh under a pact signed with Russia that calls for deployment of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers and territorial concessions that triggered protests in Armenia. The region inside Azerbaijan has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a 1994 truce ended a separatist war in which an estimated 30,000 people died. Sporadic clashes have occurred since then, and full-scale fighting began in late September.
