«At the nationwide video conference to discuss the 2026 harvest campaign on 21 July, the head of state proposed the following approach: those who refuse to work properly and steal material resources during the harvest campaign should not be sent to prison but should instead, as the defense minister put it, improve their combat readiness skills. We have identified around two to three dozen such individuals,» Yuri Karayev said. «These are the people who failed to understand that everyone is working to bring in the harvest and instead decided to profit from the situation or pursue their own interests.»

He added: «Together with military commissariats and the police, the request of district executive committee and enterprises, we have identified such people across the region. We did not overinvest in the effort so as not to disrupt the harvest campaign. We will now determine who is fit for which type of service.»

«Those who are fit will undergo weapons training, as the president said, closer to the southern border. The rest will be assigned to what can be described as defense-related work,» Yuri Karayev explained. «There are no longer construction battalions in the country, but there are engineering units. Even without weapons, carrying railway sleepers, digging, laying tracks or building roads will be useful for them.»