On 21 November, the RA Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan met with the delegations led by the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergey Shoigu, who arrived in Armenia on a working visit.

During the meeting, the situation around Nagorno Karabakh, the forthcoming activities, a wide range of issues related to the Armenian-Russian military cooperation were discussed.

Army General Sergey Shoigu congratulated Vagharshak Harutyunyan on assuming the post of RA Minister of Defense.

The parties praised the role and efforts of the Russian Federation in stabilizing the military-political situation in the region, as well as the course and effectiveness of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh, according to the statement signed on 10 November by the Russian Federation, Armenia and Azerbaijan.  The Russian Defense Minister informed about the work already done in this direction and the upcoming programs.

The Armenian and Russian Defense Ministers stressed the importance of finding and exchanging of thw corpses of dead servicemen, as well as finding and exchanging of captives, hostages and missing persons. They also noted the work of the Russian Interdepartmental Humanitarian Center in Nagorno Karabakh, aimed at the return of refugees, rehabilitation of civilian infrastructure, search work aimed at finding the casualties, captives and missing persons. As well as coordination of activities of different organizations in the humanitarian field.

At the end of the meeting, Armenian Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan and Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu signed a package of documents regulating the scope of operations of Russian peacekeeping troops in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone.