Commenting on the media coverage of the past days’ armed violence along the Armenian-Azerbaijani borderline, an Armenian information security expert said he feels that the Azerbaijani outlets reacted semi-hysterically to the incidents.

“The situation was interesting in that the Azerbaijani government institutions fell into a collapse for quite a long time, That enabled the penetration of the Armenian media there. And our media reacted very quickly,” Samvel Martirosyan told reporters.

Addressing the cybercrimes that followed the cross-border violence, the expert noted that the Armenian hacker attacks against Azerbaijani websites (Haqqin.az) were more of a demonstrative character.

“The Azerbaijanis launched attacks against several sites. Yesterday, they started using every possible method to convince their domestic audience that the Armenian side had suffered more losses. And now they are trying to freeze the situation in all possible ways; the speak of more Armenian victims to appease the domestic audience. On top of that, they manage to cover up the victims’ number. That never actually happens here, but for them, it is an accepted practice,” Martirosyan noted.

To rule out undue panic in the society, he stressed the need of a more clear cooperation between the media and the society. “One source of panic, for example, were the Azerbaijanis who disseminated false reports through fake [accounts in the social networks]. So only the media can stop rumors of the kind. One the other hand, the media cannot spread information from everywhere. Whatever appears in the Azerbaijani news has to be perceived not just as a fact but a report needing verification,” the expert explained.

As for the Russian media, Martirosyan noted that Russia demonstrated no special interest in the recent developments, with its attention being more focused on the situation in Ukraine.