Ani Avetisyan, wounded defending her children from an armed Azerbaijani soldier in Shaki, Syunik, has described the October 1 attack after Nikol Pashinyan criticized her for intervening rather than waiting for police.

On October 7, Pashinyan called the attack an “ordinary criminal incident,” saying: “I understand that maternal instinct is strong, but when you call the police, you must wait for the police to act.” He also suggested that if the family had waited, “most likely, nothing would have happened.”

Speaking to Azatutyun from a Yerevan hospital, Avetisyan, 39, said she arrived home to find Azerbaijani serviceman Nasimi Musayev pointing a rifle at her children. He had held them hostage for about 15 minutes, she said.

Musayev fired three shots, she recalled. The first missed. When he aimed at her son, she grabbed the rifle, losing her left thumb and severely injuring her other fingers. She fought back with a knife. When he aimed at her chest, she pushed the barrel down and was shot in the leg. Even after she fell, he tried to fire again, reloaded and fled.

“If I hadn’t reacted at that moment, neither I nor my children would be alive today,” she said. She did not know he was Azerbaijani; he never spoke. She faces three more surgeries.

Avetisyan criticized the delayed police response, saying officers arrived at her home after she did, despite receiving an emergency call. She had traveled from a hotel in Sisian, which she said was farther from Shaki than the local police station.

Azerbaijan notified Armenia’s National Security Service on September 29 that a serviceman had left his unit and might have entered Armenia. Residents were not warned. Musayev was apprehended October 1, after the attack.

“If we had been warned, I wouldn’t have sent my children to school, and we wouldn’t have stayed in Shaki,” she said.

Musayev remains detained, facing charges of illegal border crossing, firearms smuggling, grievous bodily harm with a weapon, illegal firearms possession and violating the inviolability of a home.

Her account raises questions about the missing warning, police response and Pashinyan’s criticism.