On Tuesday evening (7 September), two Armenians arrived in Yerevan on a Russian military plane in an exchange for one Azerbaijani serviceman. The Armenians, Arthur Nalbandyan and Aramayis Torozyan, were reportedly accompanied by the head of the Russian military contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh, Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov.
The two Armenians – one a serviceman and the other a civilian working as a military driver – had been reported missing by the Armenian Ministry of Defence (MOD) on 14 July in the south east of Armenia near Sev Lake. They were suspected to have crossed the border in a car while carrying out their duties, having been lost in fog, and were reported as being unarmed. The Azerbaijani serviceman, Jamil Babayev, had been reportedly detained by the police forces of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in Martakert city on 25 August. According to Tass news, on 26 August the Azerbaijani MOD reported that the serviceman had fled from a psychiatric hospital in Ganja.
The State Commission for Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of Azerbaijan reported on 8 September that the exchange had been carried out in accordance with the trilateral statement of 10 November 2020, through the Russian military contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh.