Ruben Vardanyan: Close to 100 killed, hundreds injured in Azerbaijani shelling in Artsakh

Ruben Vardanyan, a former state minister of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), said on Wednesday that close to 100 people had been killed and hundreds more injured in Azerbaijani attacks. 

"This is a big war - Azerbaijan has started a full operation," Vardanyan told Reuters from Karabakh.

"This is a big war - Azerbaijan has started a full operation," Ruben Vardanyan, former head of the breakaway region's government, told Reuters from Karabakh.

He said Azerbaijan's forces continued the military operation through the night and into Wednesday.

"Already hundreds of people have been injured and close to 100 people have been killed," Vardanyan said.

"They are basically saying to us that we need to leave, not stay here, or accept that this is a part of Azerbaijan - this is basically a typical ethnical cleansing operation and a war with a lot of civilians now being killed."

But Vardanyan said the world was ignoring the fate of Karabakh.

"Russia is silent and Russia is basically ignoring this whole military operation. But not only Russia but the world also is silent," Vardanyan said. "Nobody is doing anything: everyone is ignoring this, Russia is silent but so is the West."

Nagorno-Karabakh's authorities agreed to a Russian proposal to cease hostilities from 1 p.m. local time on Wednesday, one day after the launch of the Azerbaijani offensive.

The presidential office said Azerbaijani troops had broken through Artsakh army outposts and seized a number of heights and strategic road junctions.