decreased the price of gas, which was already low. In Baku, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had a discussion about a railway line from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan. Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister said that Moscow is the biggest supplier of arms to both sides and will continue to be so in the future. People who worked on the settlement process said that none of the sides would have trust in a permanent peace established by Russia alone. As the former US ambassador to the Minsk Group, Mr Bryza puts it, "The key to resolving this is to get the two presidents to have sufficient trust in each other, and Russia is not going to be able to do that". Official statements Armenian Armenian Ministry of Defence Spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan stated that the Azerbaijani attempted to take part of northern Karabakh with a "blitzkrieg", which failed. After a ceasefire was reached NKR Defence Army Colonel Victor Arustamyan said that one military position was left under Azerbaijani control, which was of no strategic significance. On 24 April President Serzh Sargsyan acknowledged that Azerbaijani troops had taken very small pieces of land in the north and south of the contact line, which he said had no strategic importance for Armenian forces, who had not attempted to reclaim them to avoid additional loss of life. On 17 May Sargsyan stated that the Armenian side had lost control of "800 hectares of land having neither tactical nor strategic importance". On 26 April 2016 Sargsyan fired 3 senior Armenian army officials, including the chiefs of the Logistics, the Intelligence and the Communications Departments, a move which was apparently influenced by the public criticism of the high death toll among the Armenian soldiers. President Sargsyan stated that Armenia would formally recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh "if the military operations continue and acquire a large scale." On 5 May 2016 the Government of Armenia approved the bill on recognition of the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It was announced, that the recognition of the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is "due to the results of discussions between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, [and] considering further developments, including external factors." Azerbaijani Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev initially claimed the clashes were a "great victory" for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence claimed that the Azerbaijani armed forces remain in control of strategic heights near the village of Talysh. Responding to