President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev advised Ukrainians “not to accept occupation” in response to a question from Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon about what the Azerbaijani President could advise the Ukrainian people during wartime.

“That’s what we did. During the years of negotiations — and I was involved from the end of 2003, for 17 years — there were many proposals, many meetings. There were many messages saying that we needed to accept the realities. And when I said no, it was perceived as a challenge to the powerful of this world. All our arguments about international law, about the UN Security Council adopting four resolutions demanding the withdrawal of Armenian forces — all of that ran into the wall of arrogant moralizing: ‘accept the realities.’ And then we decided that we would create new realities, and you would have to accept them. And that’s exactly what happened,” he noted.