“Our Rudik, cheerful, humorous, extremely hardworking, friendly, full of aspirations and goals,” the “Children of Armenia” Charitable Found (COAF) wrote:

“The loss of Rudik Gharibyan, the first graduate of the SMART Center, is unspeakably painful for us. Rudik has been serving in the RA Armed Forces for about a year and treats that mission with great responsibility and awareness. Unfortunately, yesterday, on 11 January, he fell on the battlefield with the same responsibility.

He was a vivid example of what a SMART citizen should be like and will continue to be so for us, his friends and for the future generations of SMART. And we will continue to work for a peace that does not allow such heartless mistakes ․․․

“Read the story about Rudik, which we wrote a few days before he was drafted into the army: coaf.org/en/blog/firstsmartcitizen,” the Fund said in a statement.

Earlier, the Ministry of Defense reported that on 11 January, Private Arthur Artyom Mkhitaryan (born in 2002) and Junior Sergeant Rudik Rafik Gharibyan (born in 2002) were killed as a result of a provocation carried out by Azerbaijani units in the eastern direction of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. On the same day, at midnight, the body of Vahan Vachagan Babayan (born in 2003), a soldier of the RA Armed Forces, was found with a fatal gunshot wound.