MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. Azerbaijan has detained the former commander of the army of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Lieutenant-General Levon Mnatsakanyan (in office in 2015-2018), a source in Mnatsakanyan’s entourage has said.

"General Levon Mnatsakanyan was detained by the Azerbaijanis at the Lachin checkpoint," the source said.

Mnatsakanyan was trying to leave Nagorno-Karabakh for the Armenian city of Goris.

Earlier, another former Karabakh military commander, Samvel Babayan, a supporter of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, managed to get into Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mnatsakanyan is considered as one of the closest associates of Armenia's third president, Serzh Sargsyan. Like Karabakh’s former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, who was arrested earlier, Mnatsakanyan repeatedly criticized Pashinyan's policy towards Nagorno-Karabakh.