In the time of war, writing articles is an ungrateful job. A lot can change at the time of writing or immediately after publication.

That is not the case now, because one thing is not going to change: we will win this war. Even if there are fierce battles, even if the whole territory of Armenia gets involved in the war, we will win. Even if we have tens of thousands of casualties again, we will win.

We will win because our enemies, “allies” and the “international community” have brought us to the point where we have nothing to lose.

In 1988, we asked the Soviet leadership to reverse Stalin’s decision. It response, we got Operation Ring.

In 1990, we were still trying to settle the issue peacefully, but a war was forced onto us.

In 1994, we agreed to a ceasefire despite a series of glorious victories.

Then we negotiated for many years. An agreement was supposed to be signed in Key West in 2001, but Heydar Aliyev backed out at the last moment, shocking U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was present in the room.

In 2007, the mediators introduced the Madrid Principles with 6 main elements of the settlement. Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia were expected to approve them in Kazan in the summer of 2011, but this time it was Aliyev Jr.’s turn to go back on his word at the last minute. The President of Russia at that time was Dmitry Medvedev, who would have loved to claim the laurels of the chief mediator. Now Medvedev happily holds the position of Deputy Secretary of Russia’s Security Council and urges Armenia and Azerbaijan to establish peace.

Yet, we continued to be constructive. So constructive that over the years we sometimes forgot or underestimated the value of our historic victory of 1994.

In 2008, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan decided to do the impossible and tried to normalize relations with Turkey. He was shamed and kicked in all possible ways both in Armenia and the Diaspora, but he tried for as long as possible.

In 2016, we had the April War. And even after that we were ready to negotiate and discuss a compromise.

On 27 September 2020, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian-Turkish war of 1920, another war was declared against us. That is when we realized that you did your best to make us all diehards.

At whatever cost we win this war, know that we are no longer the same. We will not beg for anything. Unlike Dmitry Medvedev, who must be the only former president of a world power to agree to serve as Deputy Secretary of Security Council, we will not be satisfied with small things.

Ara Tadevosyan is Director of Mediamax