home Women Armenian war with Azerbaijan. War in Nagorno-Karabakh could lead to a clash of powers

Armenian war with Azerbaijan. War in Nagorno-Karabakh could lead to a clash of powers

We have come to the attention of the ongoing conflict in the South Caucasus between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The stumbling block was the dispute over the lands where the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is now located.

It is because of this that the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan are in constant readiness for use. Heads of government are doing everything possible to prevent the pendulum from swinging significantly in one direction or another in the area of military potential. Once this happens, the likelihood of a peaceful settlement will drop to zero. A forceful scenario for the development of a solution to the problem of the Nagorno-Karabakh drama is also quite possible. In the event of military aggression, how will the two sworn enemies face each other?

Armed Forces of Armenia.

The Armed Forces of Armenia take their modern origins from 1918, and their modern appearance from February 1992. The Armed Forces are headed by the President of Armenia, who is also the Commander-in-Chief, Serzh Sargsyan. With the support of Defense Minister Vinigen Sargsyan. Quite a classic example of a model for modern military economic system European state. Part armed forces Armenia includes both conscripted youth, whose conscription age starts at 18 years and lasts up to 2 years, and regular military personnel. Many active military personnel receive or have received education in the Russian higher military educational institutions. Over 44 thousand people are involved in the army. Outside the country, about 200 military personnel receive military training. In the reserve, more than 210 thousand people are ready at any time, according to their military specialty, to take part in a military conflict. Funding for defense capabilities is about $518 million, as of 2018. Russia and, to a lesser extent, China are regular suppliers of weapons. In such a short time, the armed forces of Armenia took part in such local conflicts as: 1992-1994 Karabakh war, Kosovo since 2004, since 2005 they have been taking part in Iraq, Afghanistan since 2010, in Lebanon since 2014. As for weapons, there are a negligible number of the latest models and it is difficult to compete in military power with countries such as Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, it cannot fully.

Thus, the Armenian army in many ways has every chance of becoming a serious reason not to attack its country, having in its arsenal well-trained personnel, but an extremely outdated fleet of weapons and military equipment.

Azerbaijani Armed Forces

The day of formation of the armed forces of Azerbaijan is considered to be June 26, 1918 during the Karabakh conflict. The modern type of army was formed by the end of 1993. As in the army of many modern countries, the military machine of Azerbaijan is headed by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief - President Ilham Aliyev, and the Minister of Defense is Zakir Hasanov. Like the Armenian army, the Azerbaijani army consists of variable and permanent personnel. The conscription age is 18 years. The length of service varies depending on the level of education. So if at the time of conscription a young man already has higher education, then its service life is only 1 year. The size of the active army is about 66 thousand people. There are up to 300 thousand reservists in the reserve, well trained and ready for decisive action. As for military contributions, a significant advantage is expected here relative to the military budget of Armenia, $1.7 billion, as of 2015. This is not surprising, because the main suppliers are countries such as: Israel, Turkey, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus and finally China. It is worth noting that military procurement Baku can afford to purchase both outdated and still relevant ones from Turkey, modernize models in Israel, and buy modern and promising models from Russia.

Bottom line

As a result of such a blitz review, I would like to note that each of the listed parties is ready for decisive and lightning-fast actions to solve old problems, using force. Moreover, the military potential of each country is being built up, which can inevitably lead to an aggravation of the situation in the border regions of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In both numerical and military-technical aspects, Azerbaijan, of course. The leader of the military race, but the stopping factor is the location of the Russian military base on the territory of Armenia. It is known that in any development of the situation, the armed contingent of the 102nd base is ready to act, shoulder to shoulder with the Armenian army. This fact undoubtedly nullifies all the ambitions of the leadership of Turkey and Azerbaijan. Solving any problems with Armenia from the side of force and threats - dangerous a game with known endings. This is understood both in the West and by neighbors in the South Caucasus. The armies are, of course, not symmetrical, but the presence of the Russian military contingent in Armenia makes the peaceful existence of countries in the Transcaucasian region possible.

Last updated: 04/02/2016

Violent clashes broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, on Saturday night. using “all types of weapons.” The Azerbaijani authorities, in turn, claim that the clashes began after shelling from Nagorno-Karabakh. Official Baku stated that the Armenian side had violated the ceasefire 127 times over the past 24 hours, including using mortars and heavy machine guns.

AiF.ru talks about the history and causes of the Karabakh conflict, which has long historical and cultural roots, and what led to its aggravation today.

History of the Karabakh conflict

The territory of modern Nagorno-Karabakh in the 2nd century. BC e. was annexed to Greater Armenia and for about six centuries formed part of the province of Artsakh. At the end of the 4th century. n. e., during the division of Armenia, this territory was included by Persia as part of its vassal state - Caucasian Albania. From the middle of the 7th century to the end of the 9th century, Karabakh fell under Arab rule, but in the 9th-16th centuries it became part of the Armenian feudal principality of Khachen. Until the middle of the 18th century, Nagorno-Karabakh was under the rule of the union of Armenian melikdoms of Khamsa. In the second half of the 18th century, Nagorno-Karabakh, with a predominant Armenian population, became part of the Karabakh Khanate, and in 1813, as part of the Karabakh Khanate, according to the Treaty of Gulistan, it became part of the Russian Empire.

Karabakh Armistice Commission, 1918. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

At the beginning of the 20th century, the region with a predominant Armenian population twice (in 1905-1907 and in 1918-1920) became the scene of bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes.

In May 1918, in connection with the revolution and the collapse of Russian statehood, three independent states were proclaimed in Transcaucasia, including the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (mainly on the lands of the Baku and Elizavetpol provinces, Zagatala district), which included the Karabakh region.

The Armenian population of Karabakh and Zangezur, however, refused to submit to the ADR authorities. Convened on July 22, 1918 in Shusha, the First Congress of Armenians of Karabakh proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh an independent administrative and political unit and elected its own People's Government (from September 1918 - the Armenian National Council of Karabakh).

Ruins of the Armenian quarter of the city of Shusha, 1920. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Pavel Shekhtman

The confrontation between Azerbaijani troops and Armenian armed forces continued in the region until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan. At the end of April 1920, Azerbaijani troops occupied the territory of Karabakh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan. By mid-June 1920, the resistance of the Armenian armed forces in Karabakh was suppressed with the help of Soviet troops.

On November 30, 1920, Azrevkom, by its declaration, granted Nagorno-Karabakh the right to self-determination. However, despite the autonomy, the territory continued to remain Azerbaijan SSR, which led to the intensity of the conflict: in the 1960s, socio-economic tensions in the NKAO escalated into riots several times.

What happened to Karabakh during perestroika?

In 1987 - early 1988, dissatisfaction of the Armenian population with their socio-economic situation intensified in the region, which was influenced by the ongoing USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev the policy of democratization of Soviet public life and the weakening of political restrictions.

Protest sentiments were fueled by Armenian nationalist organizations, and the actions of the nascent national movement were skillfully organized and directed.

The leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, for their part, tried to resolve the situation by using the usual command and bureaucratic levers, which turned out to be ineffective in the new situation.

In October 1987, student strikes took place in the region demanding the secession of Karabakh, and on February 20, 1988, a session of the regional Council of the NKAO addressed the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR with a request to transfer the region to Armenia. In the regional center, Stepanakert, and Yerevan, rallies of many thousands with nationalist overtones took place.

Most of the Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were forced to flee. In February 1988, Armenian pogroms began in Sumgait, thousands of Armenian refugees appeared.

In June 1988, the Supreme Council of Armenia agreed to the entry of the NKAO into the Armenian SSR, and the Azerbaijani Supreme Council agreed to preserve the NKAO as part of Azerbaijan with the subsequent liquidation of autonomy.

On July 12, 1988, the regional council of Nagorno-Karabakh decided to secede from Azerbaijan. At a meeting on July 18, 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR came to the conclusion that it was impossible to transfer the NKAO to Armenia.

In September 1988, armed clashes began between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, which turned into a protracted armed conflict, which resulted in large casualties. As a result of the successful military actions of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh in Armenian), this territory came out of the control of Azerbaijan. The decision on the official status of Nagorno-Karabakh was postponed indefinitely.

Speech in support of the separation of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan. Yerevan, 1988. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Gorzaim

What happened to Karabakh after the collapse of the USSR?

In 1991, full-fledged military operations began in Karabakh. Through a referendum (December 10, 1991), Nagorno-Karabakh tried to gain the right to full independence. The attempt failed, and this region became hostage to the antagonistic claims of Armenia and attempts by Azerbaijan to retain power.

The result of full-scale military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991 - early 1992 was the complete or partial capture of seven Azerbaijani regions by regular Armenian units. Following this, military operations using the most modern weapons systems spread to internal Azerbaijan and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Thus, until 1994, Armenian troops occupied 20% of the territory of Azerbaijan, destroyed and plundered 877 settlements, while the death toll was about 18 thousand people, and the wounded and disabled were more than 50 thousand.

In 1994, with the help of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, as well as the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly in Bishkek, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan signed a protocol on the basis of which a ceasefire agreement was reached.

What happened in Karabakh in August 2014?

In the Karabakh conflict zone, at the end of July - in August 2014, there was a sharp escalation of tension, which led to casualties. On July 31 of this year, clashes occurred between the troops of the two states on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, as a result of which military personnel on both sides were killed.

A stand at the entrance to NKR with the inscription “Welcome to Free Artsakh” in Armenian and Russian. 2010 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org/lori-m

What is Azerbaijan's version of the conflict in Karabakh?

According to Azerbaijan, on the night of August 1, 2014, reconnaissance and sabotage groups of the Armenian army attempted to cross the line of contact between the troops of the two states in the Aghdam and Terter regions. As a result, four Azerbaijani servicemen were killed.

What is Armenia's version of the conflict in Karabakh?

According to official Yerevan, everything happened exactly the opposite. Official position Armenia says that an Azerbaijani sabotage group entered the territory of the unrecognized republic and fired at Armenian territory with artillery and small arms.

At the same time, Baku, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Edward Nalbandian, does not agree to the proposal of the world community to investigate incidents in the border zone, which means, therefore, according to the Armenian side, it is Azerbaijan that is responsible for the violation of the truce.

According to the Armenian Ministry of Defense, during the period of August 4-5 of this year alone, Baku resumed shelling the enemy about 45 times, using artillery, including large-caliber weapons. There were no casualties on the Armenian side during this period.

What is the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) version of the conflict in Karabakh?

According to the defense army of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), during the week from July 27 to August 2, Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire regime established since 1994 in the conflict zone in Nagorno-Karabakh 1.5 thousand times, as a result of actions on both sides, about 24 died Human.

Currently, firefights between the parties are being carried out, including the use of large-caliber small arms and artillery - mortars, anti-aircraft guns and even thermobaric grenades. Shelling of border settlements has also become more frequent.

What is Russia's reaction to the conflict in Karabakh?

The Russian Foreign Ministry assessed the escalation of the situation, “resulting in significant human casualties,” as a serious violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreements. The agency called on “to show restraint, renounce the use of force and take immediate measures aimed at.”

What is the US reaction to the conflict in Karabakh?

The US State Department, in turn, called on the ceasefire to be observed, and the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet at the earliest opportunity and resume dialogue on key issues.

“We also urge the parties to accept the proposal of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office to begin negotiations that could lead to the signing of a peace agreement,” the State Department said.

It is noteworthy that on August 2 Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan stated that the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev can meet in Sochi on August 8 or 9 this year.

“There are neither moral nor historical grounds for recognizing Karabakh as part of the territory of Azerbaijan. In every war, human rights violations are committed on both sides. However, in this case there is a constant asymmetry, which allows us to assert that the true aggressor
Azerbaijan is in this war"

Caroline Cox, Deputy Speaker of the UK House of Lords,
from the debate report on July 1, 1997

“People who don’t know the realities of this world make a lot of mistakes”

Heydar Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan,
“Baku Worker”, November 12, 1999

After the failure of the August 1991 coup, it became clear that the Soviet Union was living out its last months. Under these conditions, many republics of the USSR declared their independence.
On August 30, the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan Republic proclaimed the restoration of the independence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918-1920. The latter, as is known, was a puppet entity, whose non-recognition by the League of Nations was due precisely to the unresolved territorial disputes, including with the Armenian Republic over Nagorno-Karabakh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan.
On the contrary, Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence from the former Azerbaijan SSR in full accordance with the legislation of the USSR. On September 2, a joint session of deputies of the NKAO Regional Council and the Shahumyan District Council proclaimed the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). On December 10, 1991, a national referendum was held, in which the overwhelming majority of the NKR population spoke in favor of independence. This happened before the formal collapse of the USSR, on the basis of Article 3 of the USSR Law “On the procedure for resolving issues related to the withdrawal of a union republic from the USSR” dated April 3, 1990.
On November 26, 1991, the Azerbaijani authorities made another decision - on the abolition of the NKAO - and moved on to open aggression against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Having privatized the huge reserves of equipment, weapons and ammunition of the former Soviet army, Baku began direct military operations against the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh.
The war, which began in the fall of 1991, continued with varying success until early May 1994, when an indefinite ceasefire was concluded through the mediation of the Russian Federation. During the war, having lost part of its territories, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic at the same time established control over significant territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and lowland Karabakh outside the borders of the NKR.
This war has given rise to many myths and propaganda clichés, which are deliberately used by interested forces to misrepresent the national liberation nature of the struggle of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh for their natural right to live freely on their land. In particular, the consequences of the aggressive war imposed on the Karabakh people by the Republic of Azerbaijan and its own lost are presented by official Baku and its allies as “Armenian aggression”, occupation of Azerbaijani territories, and so on.

Divorce the Soviet way

As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the USSR Law of April 3, 1990 “On the procedure for resolving issues related to the withdrawal of a union republic from the USSR” gave the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh - that is, NKAO and the Shahumyan region - the legal opportunity to secede from the AzSSR - the Republic of Azerbaijan in the event of the latter's withdrawal from the USSR. This is exactly what happened in August–December 1991.
In response to the decision of the AR Supreme Council of August 30, on September 2, 1991, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was proclaimed in Stepanakert. The Declaration on the Proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic stated:
“Joint session of deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh regional and Shaumyan district Councils of People’s Deputies with the participation of deputies of Councils of all levels
- expressing the will of the people, enshrined in the actually held referendum and in the decisions of the authorities of the NKAO and Shaumyanovsky region in 1988-1991, their desire for freedom, independence, equality and good neighborliness;
- stating the proclamation by the Azerbaijan Republic of “restoration of state independence of 1918-1920”;
- considering that the policy of apartheid and discrimination pursued in Azerbaijan has created an atmosphere of hatred and intolerance towards the Armenian people in the republic, which has led to armed clashes, casualties, and mass deportation of residents of peaceful Armenian villages;
- based on the current Constitution and laws of the USSR, which provide the peoples of autonomous entities and compactly living national groups with the right to independently resolve the issue of their state and legal status in the event of a union republic secession from the USSR;
- considering the desire of the Armenian people for reunification to be natural and in accordance with the norms international law;
- striving to restore good neighborly relations between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples on the basis of mutual respect for each other’s rights;
- taking into account the complexity and contradictory situation in the country, the uncertainty of the fate of the future of the Union, the union structures of power and management;
- respecting and following the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil, Political and Cultural Rights and counting on the understanding and support of the international community
They proclaim: the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within the borders of the current Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region and the adjacent Shaumyan region. Abbreviated as NKR.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic uses the powers granted to the republics by the Constitution and legislation of the USSR, and reserves the right to independently determine its state and legal status on the basis of political consultations and negotiations with the leadership of the country and the republics.
On the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, until the adoption of the Constitution and laws of the NKR, the Constitution and legislation of the USSR, as well as other currently valid laws that do not contradict the goals and principles of this Declaration and the characteristics of the Republic, are in force" 1 .
Thus, the first step was taken towards the official separation of Nagorno-Karabakh from the former AzSSR on the basis of current Soviet legislation.
On September 20-23, 1991, the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, Boris Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev, undertook the first high-level peacekeeping mission in the region, visiting Baku, Stepanakert and Yerevan, where they held negotiations with the leadership of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the Republic of Armenia.
In many ways, this mission was due to the desire of two ambitious leaders who had risen to their feet to “rube the nose” of USSR President M. Gorbachev. When the motorcade of cars, guarded by the Alpha group, taxied into the central square of Stepanakert, where tens of thousands of people had gathered, Yeltsin boldly came out to the people. One of his first words were reproaches against the Soviet president. “Of course, it was necessary for Gorbachev to come here three, almost four years ago. But he didn’t come!” - the president of the new Russia said in his famous accent, with his signature grin. His words found lively support among those gathered in the square, who held banners with greetings to Presidents Yeltsin and Nazarbayev.
On September 23, in the city of Zheleznovodsk in the Russian North Caucasus, negotiations were held with the participation of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia and the leadership of the NKR. As a result, the Zheleznovodsk Communiqué was signed, a kind of declaration of the parties’ intentions to resolve the conflict.
It is characteristic that during the negotiations in Zheleznovodsk, words and remarks slipped through that indicated that at the head of the peacekeeping mission, the Russian and Kazakh presidents set the goal of belittling the weakening Union Center, which was still trying to talk about a new Union Treaty.
“The participants in the negotiations are unanimous that M. Gorbachev should not interfere in the situation,” said Izvestia’s report from the negotiations. – As you know, a Decree of the President of the USSR is being prepared, in which an attempt will be made once again to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. According to N. Nazarbayev, “there is no need for this decree; the two independent republics must agree on their own” 2 . These same words indicated that, at least, President Nazarbayev still continued to consider Nagorno-Karabakh not a subject of negotiations, but an object of dispute between two “independent republics.”
However, the mediation mission ended with virtually no results, since literally a day after the signing of the Zheleznovodsk communiqué, massive shelling of the capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Stepanakert, and direct military operations began both on the territory and along the perimeter of the NKR borders.
Dual power already reigned in Nagorno-Karabakh. Local authorities have de facto restored their powers. The forces of the commandant's office tried to maintain neutrality, directly dealing with the tasks of separating opposing forces and protecting themselves. In some rural areas, fighters of the self-defense forces, no longer hiding, openly moved in military uniform with weapons in their hands; The internal troops tried not to mess with them.
On November 20, near the villages of Berdashen (Karakend) in the Martuni region of the NKR, a Mi-8 helicopter crashed, with 21 people on board, including crew members. The helicopter was heading from the Azerbaijani Agdam to the Karabakh regional center of Martuni, where the day before there had been serious clashes between residents of the city and the Khojavend suburb populated by Azerbaijanis, which ended with the complete burning of the latter.
Along with three crew members and three officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Russian Defense Ministry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, who were part of the observation mission, among the dead was the commandant of the state of emergency region, Major General Nikolai Zhinkin. The heads of the NKAO security forces sent at different times from the center also died: the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate, Major General Sergei Kovalev, the KGB - Sergei Ivanov, and prosecutor Igor Plavsky.
Among the dead was a whole group of high-ranking officials from Baku: Prosecutor General of the Republic of Azerbaijan I. Gaibov (former prosecutor of Sumgait in 1988), Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan M. Asadov (former secretary of the Shamkhor region of the AzSSR, who organized a pogrom in Chardakhlu in 1987), Secretary of State of the AR T. Ismailov, people's deputies of the USSR, members of the organizing committee for the NKAO V. Jafarov and V. Mamedov, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the AR Z. Gadzhiev, head of the department of the Presidential Administration of the AR O. Mirzoyev. Azerbaijani television correspondents were also killed.
According to one version, a disaster occurred; according to another, the helicopter was shot down by Karabakh self-defense forces. In any case, it became known that before the arrival of the internal troops and investigators of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, someone had already visited the site of the helicopter crash: 12 units of personal weapons of the victims, walkie-talkies, some helicopter instruments and television equipment had disappeared 3 .
The investigation was never completed, and the true cause of the death of the helicopter was never established. This event further aggravated the situation in the region.
Former head of the Azerbaijani Organizing Committee, Viktor Polyanichko, who became persona non grata in Karabakh, in an attempt to score political points, shouted from Baku in an oriental manner: “This tragedy has become a link in the shaitan chain that binds Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani people have experienced everything that Satan can send to earth... Those who led the two communities to enmity and blood must answer for the Karabakh tragedy. May they always be haunted, like punishment, by the vision of the monstrous tragedy they committed near the Black Village (the name “Karakend” is translated from Azerbaijani as the Black Village - author’s note)... Allah sees and knows everything! God knows and sees everything!” 4
The Azerbaijani side finally cut off supplies of transit Russian gas to the Republic of Armenia. Since November 22, the Yevlakh-Stepankert railway, through which freight trains had occasionally come and gone, was blocked.
On November 26, the AR Supreme Council adopted the above-mentioned decision on the abolition of NKAO. The USSR was on the verge of collapse, and the policy of “obedience” to the once mighty Center was discarded as unnecessary.
In response, the session of the Council of People's Deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, held on November 27 in Stepanakert, approved the date for holding a referendum on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and adopted a temporary regulation on elections to the Supreme Council of the NKR.
By this time, hostilities were already taking place both along the borders and in a significant part of the territory of the NKR itself. Under these conditions, a referendum was held on December 10, which asked the following question: “Do you agree that the proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic should be an independent state that independently determines the forms of cooperation with other states and communities?”
The progress of the referendum was monitored by a group of independent observers, among whom were people's deputies of the USSR, RSFSR, Moscow and Leningrad Soviets, representatives of the Memorial society, other Russian, Armenian and Ukrainian human rights and public organizations and movements. They were accompanied by journalists from Russian television, television correspondents from the USA, Bulgaria, correspondents from Radio Russia, Echo of Moscow, print publications Izvestia, Moscow News, Megapolis Express, Stolitsa, Panorama, " Literary newspaper", "Cotidien de Paris", the news agency "France Press", a number of other publications and agencies.
The Act on the results of the referendum, signed by independent observers, stated that 108,736 people took part in the referendum, or 82.2% of the number of registered voters. The overwhelming majority of those who did not take part in the vote are residents of Azerbaijani settlements.
Of those who took part in the vote, 108,615 or 99.89% said “yes” to independence. Considering all the previous events in Nagorno-Karabakh, this result did not seem surprising. On the voting day alone, according to observers, ten Karabakh residents were killed and eleven were wounded by shelling.
On December 28, 1991, elections to the Supreme Council of the NKR took place. The elections were held according to the majoritarian system, 75 deputies were elected.
On January 6, 1992, the Supreme Council of the NKR adopted the Declaration of State Independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The Declaration stated, in particular:
“Based on the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination, based on the will of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, expressed through the Republican referendum held on December 10, 1991;
- realizing responsibility for the fate of the historical Motherland;
- confirming loyalty to the principles of the Declaration on the Proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic of September 2, 1991;
- seeking to normalize relations between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples;
- wanting to protect the population of the NKR from aggression and the threat of physical destruction;
- developing the experience of independent people's self-government of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1918-1920;
- expressing readiness to establish equal and mutually beneficial relations with all states and commonwealths of states;
- respecting and following the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the final document of the Vienna Meeting of the participating countries of the European Conference on Security and Cooperation, and other generally recognized norms of international law,
The Supreme Council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic approves the independent statehood of the NKR.”
Further, the Declaration listed the basic principles and norms on which the young republic was to be built. Including the fact that “the basis for the creation of the Constitution and legislation of the NKR is this Declaration and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” 5 .
January 8 The first chairman of the Supreme Council of the NKR was elected 33-year-old candidate of historical sciences Arthur Mkrtchyan.
Thus, in the vastness of the former Soviet Union, a new state was proclaimed with a territory of 5 thousand km 2 and a population of approximately 210 thousand people. Of whom the overwhelming majority were Armenians, about 40 thousand were Azerbaijanis and Kurds, about one and a half thousand were Russians and representatives of other nationalities.
Over the following years, official Baku and its allies were unable to come up with a single serious argument against the impeccable, from the point of view of international law, formation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, except for one false and obviously untenable one.
“During the existence of the USSR, not a single union republic, including Azerbaijan and Armenia, took advantage of the withdrawal procedure provided for in the Law,” writes First Class Advisor to the Foreign Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan Tofik Musayev in the article “Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict: from claims to military occupation » 6.
A similar assessment is given by the well-known International Crisis Group - ICG, a supposedly independent expert organization that actually lobbies American-British interests (by a “strange coincidence”, the residence of the ICG is Brussels, where NATO headquarters is located). The ICG report dated September 14, 2005, entitled “Nagorno-Karabakh: a view of the conflict from the ground,” said in particular: “The Azerbaijani authorities believe that the reference to this law is groundless, since not a single union republic, including Armenia and Azerbaijan did not use this procedure for secession specified in the law.”
Meanwhile, it was the Republic of Armenia that became the only republic of the USSR to leave the Union in full compliance with the USSR Law of April 3, 1990, ignoring the referendum on preserving the USSR on March 17, 1991 and then announcing the upcoming referendum on independence, which was held on September 21 of the same year. In the same way, NKAO became the only former Soviet autonomy that exercised its right to self-determination in strict accordance with this USSR Law.
By the way, the authorities of the Republic of Azerbaijan retrospectively later claimed that on December 31, 1991, a referendum on independence was allegedly held in this republic, in which 99 percent of the population voted for independence. Six months earlier, the same figure in favor of preserving the USSR was given in the former AzSSR by a referendum that actually took place on March 17, 1991.
Until the official collapse of the Soviet Union, no one had ever legally repealed the USSR Law of April 3, 1990. The same circumstance that other republics gained independence following the collapse of the USSR - a foregone conclusion by the December decision of the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, - could not at all mean the legal incompetence of the previous actions of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to exercise its legal right to raise the question of its own state-legal status.
To simplify, we can recall the inscription that greeted Soviet people in every police station: “Ignorance of the law does not exempt you from responsibility for violating it.” Or, to put it simply, “the law is written for everyone.” And knowledge, but non-compliance with the law by some subjects, even if the majority, cannot in any way cancel the legality of the implementation of the same law by other (other) subjects.
Therefore, it is not clear by what logic opponents of the right of the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh to exercise the right to self-determination believed and still believe that the failure of the overwhelming majority of the Union republics of the USSR to comply with the norms of the current legislation during the collapse of the USSR “cancels” the legality of the NKR’s acquisition of independence in full accordance with this very legislation.
By the way, it is precisely the fact that the collapse of the USSR was accomplished in circumvention of the law - as opponents of the Belovezh Agreement have repeatedly rightly said - that is the reason for the poorly hidden irritation caused in many CIS capitals at the mention of the USSR Law of April 3, 1990. Obviously, this position has absolutely nothing to do with the legal approach.
But the Law of April 3, 1990 was vividly remembered during the period of Georgian aggression against the people of South Ossetia in August 2008. It was on the basis of this Law that at meetings of the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Russian Federation it was retrospectively announced that Georgia was incompetent to decide the fate of its former autonomies in 1991. In fact, the USSR Law of April 3, 1990 became the legal basis for the recognition by the Russian Federation of the state independence of the Republic South Ossetia and the Republic of Abkhazia on August 26, 2008...
Meanwhile, at the end of November 1991, events developed like an avalanche. On November 26, the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan Republic adopted a law abolishing the NKAO, which for some reason was published in the Azerbaijani press only at the beginning of January 1992 7 .
As Tofik Musaev believes in the above-mentioned article “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict: from claims to military occupation,” “until the full restoration of the state independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan and its recognition by the international community, Nagorno-Karabakh continued to be part of Azerbaijan, and actions aimed at unilateral secession this region, did not have any legal consequences" 8 .
The page above T. Musaev, trying to prove that by September 1991 the USSR Law of April 3, 1990 had lost its “relevance and legal force,” refers to the documents of the latter governing body The Soviet Union - the State Council of the USSR, whose resolutions “on September 6, 1991 formalized the recognition of the independence of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia” 9.
But even here Mr. Musaev hits the mark. He apparently does not know, or he deliberately “conceals” from the reader the reaction of the same USSR State Council to the legislative act on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, adopted by the Republic of Azerbaijan on November 26, 1991
Namely, that already on the second day after the decision of the AR Supreme Court of November 26, by the Resolution of November 28, 1991, the USSR State Council recognized the law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the abolition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region as unconstitutional, which automatically meant depriving this law of any legal force 10 .
The resolution of the State Council was called “On measures to stabilize the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Okrug and border areas of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia,” that is, its very name contained rejection of the unilateral anti-constitutional actions of Baku.
However, not a single act related to the proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the holding of a national referendum on its state-legal status, adopted in the fall of 1991 in the NKAO-NKR, was canceled or declared illegal by the same State Council of the USSR 11 .
But before the collapse of the USSR, the State Council had more than enough time to consider and give a negative assessment of at least the same Declaration on the Proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic of September 2, 1991, adopted by a joint session of the NKAO Regional Council and the Shaumyan District Council of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The first ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Armenia, Vladimir Stupishin, rightly noted in his book “My Mission to Armenia”: “But by what right does Baku deny its (Nagorno-Karabakh - author’s note) status, recognized by the same constitutional system that gave birth to the Azerbaijani SSR? According to Soviet state law, an autonomous region is a national-state entity with its own territory, the integrity of which must also be respected. Moreover, the qualities of a subject of a large federation were also recognized for the autonomous entities: they were directly represented in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and not through those union republics, within whose framework they were squeezed, as a rule, against their will” 12.
...Knowing full well the weakness of his argument and complete absence under it any legal basis, opponents of the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic also focus on another argument from the arsenal of Azerbaijani propaganda: local Azerbaijanis did not participate in the referendum on December 10, 1991, therefore, they say, it is illegitimate.
However, it is known that the authorities of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic officially invited the Azerbaijani national minority to take part in the referendum and even sent, through the mediation of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, voting ballots, printed including in the Azerbaijani language, to the Azerbaijani settlements of the NKR.
However, the Karabakh Azerbaijanis actually became hostages of the Baku authorities, who forbade them to participate in the referendum. In addition, the long-term intensification of ethnic hatred by the Azerbaijani authorities, the course of Operation Ring and the beginning of actual hostilities gave many local Azerbaijanis the illusion that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will be dealt with very soon. This regrettable fact also cannot be discounted.
In the already mentioned ICG report of September 14, 2005, in an attempt to convince the international community that the 1991 referendum in the NKR is not legitimate, the drafters of the ICG report initially even resorted to outright overexposure.
Thus, in the original version of the above-mentioned report, incorrect data were given about national composition population of NKAO: the number of Azerbaijanis was overestimated from 21.5% according to official data from the 1989 USSR census to 25.3%. It also said about the referendum on December 10, 1991: “...approximately 108,615 people voted for the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. Only a few (none) of the 47,400 Azerbaijani residents participated in the referendum.”
Thus, firstly, the size of the Azerbaijani population of the NKR was again overestimated; and the number of Armenian voters was contrasted not with the number of Azerbaijani voters, but with the total (and also inflated) number of Azerbaijani residents of the NKR, taking into account minor children who do not have the right to vote.
In fact, according to the data of the NKR Central Election Commission, the number of voters of Azerbaijani nationality was 26.4 thousand people, which was slightly less than 20% of the total number of voters. A quick glance at the ICG data taken out of thin air gave a figure of 30.4% of voters of this nationality! As they say, feel the difference.
In 1988, the percentage of Armenian voters in the total number of residents of the city of Baku was no less than the percentage of Azerbaijani voters in the NKR, but today the same ICG does not at all try to question the results of elections and referendums held over the past years in the Azerbaijani capital.
Here, as in many other cases, there is an obvious double standard, so inherent in the coverage of almost any aspect of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh, or, in OSCE terminology, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Arm yourself who can!

By the end of September 1991, it became clear that the Soviet army and internal troops could no longer so clearly be a foreign legion in the service of Baku. Yes, there was almost 12,000 riot police in the Republic of Azerbaijan, but its effectiveness in the run-up great war raised great doubts.
Thus, in the same September, the Karabakh self-defense forces stormed riot police positions on a mountain plateau in the Shahumyan region and, with minimal losses, recaptured the villages of Erkech, Manashid and Buzlukh, deported with the help of the Soviet army in July, from the forces of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Internal Affairs. Moreover, the losses of the defending riot police were significantly higher than those of the Karabakh attacking from below; and at the abandoned positions they abandoned artillery pieces and heavy machine guns.
However, Baku had a large reserve in the form of units of the 4th Army, which gradually became national in 1990-1991.
If in the Armenian SSR there were military conscriptions in 1990-1991. were practically thwarted due to the reluctance of the republican authorities to send conscripts to the vast expanses of the “common home”, and the central authorities to contribute to the creation of a base of national troops, then in the AzSSR-AR the situation was different.
As noted earlier, A. Mutalibov, loyal to the Kremlin, was given the go-ahead to slowly but surely create his own army. Back in 1990, the USSR Ministry of Defense allowed over 60 percent of conscripts recruited in the republic to remain on the territory of Azerbaijan (traditionally, no more than 10-15 percent of local conscripts remained in the republics).
In addition, although the official participation of the army in the conflict on the side of Baku formally became impossible, the practice of “informal” participation in hostilities for an appropriate reward became widespread.
At the same time, the AR authorities accelerated the process of forcible expropriation of weapons, which already in October-November 1991 (when the “new” authorities lost their fear after the failure of the putsch openly supported by Ayaz Mutalibov) sometimes began to take the form of unbridled robbery. Murders, hostage-takings and attacks on military personnel in order to confiscate weapons, property, equipment and ammunition of the 4th Army have become more frequent.
If in the Republic of Armenia (RA) the peak of attacks on military warehouses or facilities occurred in 1990 - early 1991, and by the end of 1991 - early 1992. There were significantly fewer such attacks, but in the Republic of Azerbaijan (AR) the number of attacks on the military during this period grew like an avalanche.
Thus, according to statistics from the headquarters of the Transcaucasian Military District, in the first five months of 1992 alone, there were twice as many attacks on the army in the Republic of Azerbaijan as in the entire year of 1991 - 98 and 43, respectively. As a result of this, according to the same data, over the five months of 1992, 3,939 weapons were stolen in the Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan compared to 73 in the Republic of Armenia 13 .
As a result of more than 100 attacks on military units and warehouses between October 1991 and June 1992, dozens of tanks, armored fighting vehicles (armored combat vehicles - BMP, armored personnel carriers, BRDM, etc.), artillery, and missile systems were captured in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Grad installations, two MI-24 combat helicopters, a SU-25 jet attack aircraft; the largest district ammunition depot in ZakVO in Agdam and a number of other warehouses; several military bases and units.
Meanwhile, during this “privatization”, unprecedented in its scale, accompanied by dozens of killed, wounded and taken hostage military personnel, military press services continued to draw public attention primarily to cases of attacks that took place in the Republic of Armenia, incomparable to any in terms of the number of weapons captured, nor in its consequences for the military balance in the region.
For example, in May 1992, the hijacking of two helicopters from a military base at Yerevan Erebuni airport, which ended in the return of the helicopters to the military without shooting or casualties, was given much more attention than the seizure by the Azerbaijani national army of a brigade air defense control center near the city of Mingachevir, - with the dispersal of personnel and the taking of hostages.
The seizure by the emerging Azerbaijani army of the largest district ammunition depot in the Caucasus near the city of Agdam on February 23, 1992, which had dramatic consequences for the further escalation of violence in the region, was practically not covered. But this warehouse stored 728 wagons of artillery, 245 wagons of rockets and 131 wagons of ammunition for small arms: a total of 1104 wagons of ammunition! This amount of the Azerbaijani army was more than enough for several years of hostilities.
According to the Decree of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the troops of the ZakVO were declared to be under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. However, the authorities of the Transcaucasian republics also took steps to speed up the transfer of weapons to them from the armies stationed on their territories. Thus, back in December 1991, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan A. Mutalibov issued a Decree on the transfer to his subordination of military units and formations on the territory of the former Azerbaijan SSR. And in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in January 1992, Heydar Aliyev, who returned to the republic in the summer of 1990, stated that the military must obey the Supreme Majlis of the NAR and cannot take anything out of the republic except personal belongings.
At the beginning of 1992, agreements were reached between Russia and the Transcaucasian republics on the transfer to the Ministries of Defense of the new states of part of the equipment and weapons stationed on their territories of the former Soviet armies on a parity basis. However, in reality there was no parity, and the weapons themselves were not transferred at the same time. Baku was the first to receive weapons, and received them in significantly greater quantities than Yerevan and Tbilisi combined.
The process of official transfer of weapons to the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan began on February 19, 1992 during the visit to Baku of Colonel General B. Gromov and Fleet Admiral V. Chernavin. Then a helicopter squadron and some rear units were transferred to the AR Ministry of Defense and a preliminary agreement was reached on the division of the Caspian flotilla. The transfer process basically ended in May-early June 1992, but some units were transferred later (for example, on August 6, 1992, an artillery regiment in the city of Port Ilyich in the Caspian Sea was transferred to the Azerbaijani side).
Only officially, in accordance with the directive of the Russian Ministry of Defense N 314/3/022B dated June 22, 1992, Russia declared in June 1992 the transfer to the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan of 237 tanks, about 630 armored fighting vehicles, 175 artillery systems, 130 mortars, 33 BM-21 installations "Grad" and about 2000 machine guns 14.
Baku received from the Russian army and captured 130 combat and training aircraft. Among them were Su-25 attack aircraft, Su-24 front-line bombers, MIG fighters and high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, Czechoslovakian L-29, L-39 (the latter were easily converted into light attack aircraft capable of carrying bombs, unguided missiles, aircraft cannons and machine guns). This fact was recognized by Russian parliamentarians during their visit to Armenia in November 1992 15 .
Not a single combat aircraft was transferred to Yerevan, since they were not based on the territory of the republic.
On November 6, 1993, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan sent letter No. 175 to the delegations of the states parties to the Treaty on the Limitation of Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), to the joint consultative group in Vienna, in which it informed that “in July-August 1992, the Russian Federation transferred , and the Republic of Azerbaijan accepted under its jurisdiction the following number of weapons and equipment limited by the Treaty:

battle tanks - 286 units,
armored combat vehicles - 842 units,
artillery systems - 346 units,
combat aircraft - 53 units,
attack helicopters- 8 units

In May 1993, the Republic of Azerbaijan accepted 105 units of armored combat vehicles and 42 units of artillery systems from the Russian Federation.”
Summarizing the above data from the Russian Defense Ministry Directive dated June 22, 1992 and the data on weapons “expropriated” by force, one can easily verify that almost all the equipment and weapons of 5 divisions of the former Soviet army went to the Azerbaijani National Army. In 1992 - four divisions of the 4th Army: 23rd, 295th, 60th Motorized Rifle Divisions (motorized rifle divisions), stationed in Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic 75th Motorized Rifle Division, and a little later, in 1993, 104th Airborne Division, stationed in Ganja (Kirovabad).
To this we must add 40% of the ships and vessels of the Caspian military flotilla with all the coastal infrastructure, parts of the air defense army stationed in the republic, military airfields, etc.
The transfer of equipment and weapons to the Republic of Armenia of two divisions of the 7th Army - Yerevan and Kirovakan - began at the end of June 1992 and ended in July of the same year. From combat aviation, the RA received a helicopter squadron based at Erebuni airport, on the outskirts of Yerevan; Several air defense units were also transferred.
A formation was created on the basis of the Leninakan division of the 7th Army and a number of individual units Russian troops in the Republic of Armenia. In the summer of 1992, the Russian-Armenian Treaty “On the Status of Russian Troops in Armenia” was prepared and signed in the fall, which determined the legal status of these troops in the republic, as well as the fact that these troops defend the land and air borders of the former USSR in Armenia - that is, the RA borders with Turkey and Iran.
After the division of military property, Russian air defense troops remained in Transcaucasia - in fact, partially - air defense troops. However, in the Republic of Armenia, for example, they were then only 30 percent staffed, 16 which did not even make it possible to cover the external borders of the CIS, and in the Republic of Azerbaijan, many air defense units were captured by the national army.
All the processes described above were hidden from the general public of Russia under the camouflage of very confusing and ideologically prepared propaganda of the military press services; so it was almost impossible to figure out what was what for a person who did not specifically follow the events in Transcaucasia. Last but not least, this was probably done in order to hide the clearly not disinterested fact of the transfer of a huge amount of weapons to the Baku regime, which suddenly had more weapons at its disposal than many NATO countries.
Taking into account the war launched by Baku to destroy the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh and aggressive actions against the Republic of Armenia, the transfer by the Russian military department of such a quantity of weapons to the warring country did not correspond not only to the CIS treaties, but also to the obligations assumed by the leadership of the Russian Federation as a permanent member of the UN Security Council .
As a result of these injections, military parity in the region was sharply disrupted; this, as well as the earlier transfer of weapons to the Azerbaijan Republic, allowed the Azerbaijani side to carry out a large-scale offensive in June-August 1992 on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic proclaimed after the collapse of the USSR and capture the Shahumyan and most of the Mardakert regions of the NKR.
What about Nagorno-Karabakh?
It was curious what was emphasized in 1991-1992. the attention of all the media without exception to the fate of the 366th motorized rifle regiment of the 23rd division stationed in Stepanakert until March 1992. When attempting to withdraw the regiment, a large group of officers and warrant officers prevented the removal of approximately one third of the regimental equipment and weapons, which were adopted by the self-defense forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It came to the point of armed clashes with paratroopers from the 104th division (stationed in Kirovabad-Ganja) who had arrived to remove equipment, and the latter retreated.
Among this group of military personnel there were not only Armenians, but also Russians, Ukrainians, and representatives of other nationalities. IN Russian Ministry defense, they were all then branded as “traitors.” Meanwhile, these people lived and served in Stepanakert for many years, and during the period of massive shelling of the city, their wives and children hid for months in damp, cold basements, like all other Stepanakert residents. And the servicemen themselves were forced to run from home to the location of the regiment, which was also under fire from Shushi, and think every minute: what is happening to their families there now?
And after 5 months of this nightmare, what should a decent person have done: take their families out and, waving goodbye to their neighbors, leave with all their equipment from the region under fire? Or do what the “traitors” did: after evacuating those who could, their families remained to fulfill their duty as protectors of the population not in words, but in deeds?
But even after this replenishment, the arsenal of the Karabakh people, in comparison with the forces of the enemy advancing from everywhere, was insignificant. Suffice it to say that they got from the 366th Regiment only... 2 operational, operational T-72 tanks, two or three dozen BMP-1 and BMP-2, 3 anti-aircraft self-propelled guns (ZSU-23-4) "Shilka" , a number of lightly armored tractors (MTLB) and engineering vehicles.
Let us recall that until May 1992, the NKR was blocked on all sides by the Azerbaijani army, so the Karabakh people had to start the war practically with guns and machine guns in their hands. After all, it is impossible in principle to deliver heavy equipment - infantry fighting vehicles, especially tanks - by helicopters, even Mi-26 transport ones, which only the military had.
Another part of the equipment of the 366th regiment was nevertheless taken out by airborne units, disabled by them on the spot, or was destroyed earlier - during the shelling of Stepanakert by Azerbaijani Grad installations from Shushi in February 1992.
Attention to this problem was artificially drawn, although it is quite obvious that the former NKAO, according to the Soviet Constitution, was a subject of the Union and had the right to its share of weapons, especially in the conditions of an armed attack on it.
At the same time, the reaction of the leadership of the former Soviet army to the fact that the weapons of the 75th division, which was located in the enclaved Nakhichevan, was completely calm was special problems transferred to the local leadership headed by Heydar Aliyev. Moreover, even before the departure of the personnel of the 75th division from Nakhichevan, the press spoke of its transfer as something already decided: “We are in a confined space and latest statements P. Grachev and A. Rutsky about the immediate withdrawal of equipment for this region are unacceptable. Here the only solution can be - to transfer equipment, military camps, property to the legitimate authorities,” said deputy commander of the 75th division V. Markelov 17 .
As the Azerbaijani army received more and more weapons, the escalation of military operations in the region became more and more noticeable.

War

Since September 25, from Shushi and from the Azerbaijani villages surrounding Stepanakert and located on the heights, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh began to come under fire from Alazan anti-hail missile launchers, artillery pieces, and small arms. Soon the shelling became regular; they also intensified as more and more deadly weapons were brought into the Azerbaijani settlements that surrounded Stepanakert during the years of “socialist internationalism”
The Karabakh Armenians soon began to respond by shelling Shushi from the wooded mountains located a couple of kilometers from the opposite side of the Shusha gorge - first with Alazan missiles, and later from artillery pieces. However, the positions of the parties were incomparable.
Shusha, located only 6 kilometers from Stepanakert in a straight line, is located on average 600 meters higher in altitude. And the ledges of the Shusha plateau closest to the capital of the NKR hang over Stepanakert from a bird's eye view, 2-3 kilometers from the city center. That is, when shelling Stepanakert from Shushi, there was practically no need to take aim: even if missiles and shells were fired at direct fire, they would still fall on a house or street.
From the village of Malybeyli, adjacent to the outskirts of Stepanakert in the northeast, they fired directly from Rapier anti-tank guns, which pierced the 5-story buildings of the outlying city block, and fired machine guns.
From the highest, southwestern outskirts of Stepanakert, from the village of Kirkidzhan, predominantly populated by Azerbaijanis, they fired from automatic weapons at the adjacent neighborhoods of the city. There were cases when bullets from a sniper rifle, already at exhaustion, found their victim in the very center of the city, at a distance of more than 2 kilometers from the village.
Kirkidzhan itself, located on the slopes of a mountain range, was turned into a serious defensive position. Under the patronage of the Organizing Committee, over the course of a year and a half, numerous concrete pillboxes, positions, fortified basements were erected in the village, passages and communication passages were dug.
Suffice it to say that the companies and platoons of militias that began to form in Stepanakert waged the struggle for the capture of this city suburb from the end of December 1991 to January 22, 1992. Fighting sometimes lasted for days for individual houses and even buildings.
In October, self-defense forces carried out operations to return the Armenian villages of the Hadrut region deported in May-June. And on October 31, an unexpected blow knocked out the riot police garrison from the large village of Tog with a mixed population. All Azerbaijani villagers - among whom, however, almost half were local Armenians Islamized two centuries ago - left the village along with the retreating riot police.
By mid-December 1991, the internal troops, whose number in the NKAO had been gradually declining over the previous few months, not only no longer controlled anything, but were also having difficulty protecting themselves. On December 22, in Stepanakert, a UAZ of the commandant’s office, which did not stop as directed by the Karabakh self-defense forces post, was fired upon, killing a serviceman. The situation has become a mirror image of what it was under the previous regime. By that time, the internal troops were already in full swing preparing for a complete withdrawal from the area of emergency.
The telegram sent by the chairman of the NKR Executive Committee and the people's deputies of the SSR from Nagorno-Karabakh to the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus stated that, despite all the assurances that internal troops would leave the region only after ensuring guarantees for the safety of its population, in reality these troops were being withdrawn , and their weapons are transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Therefore, the leaders of the self-defense forces could not just let them go, with all their weapons. On December 23, an armed unit of Karabakh residents blocked the personnel of the internal troops regiment at their place of deployment while they were eating in the canteen. The operation took place without casualties, and the regiment left the region freely. The Karabakh militias received about a thousand Kalashnikov assault rifles, several dozen machine guns, sniper rifles and pistols, a dozen armored personnel carriers and BRDMs, trucks, several mobile radio stations, etc.
By the way, the correctness of the decision of the Karabakh people is evidenced by a slightly later event in another “hot spot” of Transcaucasia - South Ossetia. “On April 25, 1992, the Russian contingent of internal troops, located in the building of a former tourist center on the outskirts of Tskhinvali, left South Ossetia for Georgia under the cover of darkness, taking with them weapons and equipment and leaving the residents of the capital of South Ossetia face to face with obviously superior forces and outnumbered by an enemy who did not hide his goal - to wipe the self-determined republic off the face of the earth. This act was sharply perceived by the population of the republic, which regarded the withdrawal of internal troops as an act of betrayal on the part of the “Yeltsin-Kozyrev” leadership” 18 .
However, as earlier in Nagorno-Karabakh, the defenders of South Ossetia “made an irrational decision: to fight to the death, no matter what. This is a solution from the point of view common sense seemed absurd, because it doomed the small and poorly armed self-defense units to rapid destruction, and therefore, obviously, was not expected or calculated by anyone. In the subsequent escalation of the conflict during rocket and artillery attacks on Tskhinval, dozens of people were killed and maimed every day... But at the cost of enormous sacrifices, the republic survived” 19 .
As we can see, the situations in which we found ourselves at the beginning of hostilities in 1991-1992. Stepanakert and Tskhinvali were almost identical. Obviously, it would have been much easier for the Ossetians if at least part of the arsenal of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation had remained in place, and had not been withdrawn along with the troops. That is, the Karabakh people acted quite logically and predictably in December 1991.
The weapons taken from the regiment of internal troops became the first relatively large arsenal, which allowed the emerging NKR self-defense forces to begin operations to unblock Stepanakert by establishing control over the Azerbaijani villages surrounding the city, turned into real firing points.
Naturally, weapons also came from Yerevan by helicopters, which, as a rule, took off from the shores of Lake Sevan in the pre-dawn twilight and at the very dawn of dawn quickly crossed the mountain slums of Kelbajar, bristling with machine guns extended from the windows.
At the end of December 1991, the last representatives of the commandant's office of the state of emergency region, accompanied by special forces of the internal troops, finally left the territory of the NKR.
When local journalists entered the building, which had served as a refuge for the Organizing Committee and the military commandant’s office for almost two years, they were presented with premises that were completely polluted in the literal sense of the word. Feces lay on the floor, tables, chairs and carpets, and was smeared on the walls and windows. The same picture appeared earlier to the fighters of the self-defense forces and at the school in the regional center of Shaumyan immediately after the departure of the garrison of internal troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The farewell of the “forces of law and order” to their fellow citizens was not very cordial...
Meanwhile, shelling of NKR cities and villages became more frequent and fierce. On January 13, the Azerbaijani army used the BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) against civilians for the first time - weapon mass destruction, whose use against populated areas is prohibited by international conventions. As a result of the shelling of the regional center of Shaumyan, five people were killed and more than ten were wounded, dozens of residential buildings were destroyed and damaged.
Exactly a month later, on February 13, the Azerbaijani armed forces began regular attacks from Grads on the capital of the NKR. As new installations were delivered, Stepanakert was fired upon by Grads not only from Shushi, but also from Khojaly and the Azerbaijani villages of Jangasan, Kesalar, and Malibeyli surrounding the capital of the NKR.
Stepanakert, with a population of 55,000, has turned into a systematically destroyed ghost town. The population hid in the basements, only occasionally going up to their apartments. But many private houses did not have basements at all. And the existing basements of private properties, in contrast to concrete basements apartment buildings– could not serve as a serious refuge in the event of a direct hit by a two-meter Grad shell on a residential building.
In winter, when it was cold, there was no heat or electricity in the city. The only thing that saved us was the gas, which the Azerbaijani side did not turn off for the simple reason that it was supplied through Stepanakert to the highland Shusha, where the winter is more severe.
Crowding of people in basements, cold and stress contributed to the spread of diseases. In the absence of electricity, water was not supplied to houses at all. And in the intervals between shelling, townspeople stood in lines at the few springs, scattering for cover when the shelling resumed. To save their place in line, they often left their buckets in place; The photographs taken by correspondents of “queues” of empty buckets became a gloomy symbol of besieged Stepanakert.
Journalists and mediators who visited the Karabakh capital during these terrible months compared Stepanakert with besieged Leningrad 1941-1943 Only the Germans stood much further from the city on the Neva, while Stepanakert, lying in full view at the feet of the Azerbaijani military, was coldly destroyed by aimless shooting at squares from Grad launchers.
There were days when up to 200 Grad shells alone fell on the city. On such days, the number of dead and wounded numbered in the dozens. Operations in the hospital were performed in basements under the light provided by diesel generators. Fuel was supplied in buckets. Women in labor gave birth in the basement of the former executive committee, where a temporary delivery center was set up: the city maternity hospital and hospital were destroyed by direct hits from multiple launch rocket systems.
Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords of Great Britain, Baroness Caroline Cox, first visited Nagorno-Karabakh in the summer of 1991, during Operation Ring,” as part of the international delegation of the human rights congress in memory of Academician A. Sakharov. Imbued with compassion for the people of Karabakh, she returned to the mountainous region again and again, bringing humanitarian aid and telling the world about the tragedy taking place in the region. And after the war, she launched an entire program of humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation of victims. Today, Cox has already visited the NKR more than 60 times, where everyone knows her, young and old. This is how she described the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh in March 1992 in an interview with the Russian Thought newspaper under the telling headline “This part of the world has turned into a living hell.”
“In March, we went to Nagorno-Karabakh again and became convinced that not only was there no improvement in the situation, but, on the contrary, it had catastrophically worsened. It seems to me that these days there is hardly another place in the world where people are in such truly hellish conditions. The largest number of casualties are among the civilian population. They announced several times that they had agreed on a ceasefire, and each time the Azerbaijani side violated the agreement and began shelling from Grad launchers. These attacks in most cases do not pursue any strategic goals; it is simply the destruction of life. People die, and their relatives cannot even bury them properly, according to their traditions; animals are killed, or they die from wounds or hunger; cities and villages are compared to the ground" 20 .
There was only one way out: to break the blockade ring and destroy the firing points. First of all, around the capital of the NKR, which was done in the winter and spring of 1992.
Self-defense forces units took turns fighting and occupied the villages of Jamilla, Malibeyli and Khojaly in the Askeran region. When Khojaly was captured on March 26, 1992, Stepanakert airport was unblocked, and planes from Yerevan began landing there. However, only a few flights were made, because from the Aghdam side the airport soon began to be fired upon from Grads, and one Yak-40, standing on the runway, fortunately, without passengers, was destroyed by fire from the Azerbaijani side.
There were many civilians left in Khojaly who did not have time to leave, who were subsequently exchanged for Armenian hostages and simply handed over to the Azerbaijani side. During the assault itself there were few civilian casualties. Hundreds of people successfully retreated along the corridor through the valley of the Karkar River towards Agdam. However, it was there, near the Azerbaijani positions, that a tragedy occurred: several dozen civilians from among those retreating were shot in cold blood, and the corpses of some were then mutilated. This happened on neutral territory, and even then not only the Karabakh people, but also some Azerbaijanis directly expressed the idea of a deliberate provocation.
After a decade and a half, this tragedy has acquired unimaginable details and is being put forward in Baku as the main evidence of the cruelty of the Armenian side. We will return to this topic below.
On May 8-9, as a result of a carefully prepared assault, Karabakh self-defense units, during stubborn battles, captured the fortified positions of the Azerbaijani army near the villages of Kesalar, Jangasan, on the heights near Stepanakert, and stormed the city of Shusha.
This was an amazing operation: the forces of the Karabakh people advancing from bottom to top in this direction numbered up to three thousand soldiers, which was significantly less than that of the defending enemy. At the same time, we had to advance into the mountains, sometimes climbing overgrown slopes. Despite this, all positions were successfully taken, and the losses of the Karabakh people killed and died from wounds amounted to about 50 people, which was several times less than the losses of the enemy, who was defending in seemingly impregnable positions.
During the assault on Shushi, the Karabakh people lost one of their two tanks, which was hit by direct fire from an enemy tank. Two crew members died, but the commander, thrown out of the flying tower by a blast wave, miraculously remained alive. Today, this tank-monument stands on a platform built near the site of his death, not far from the northern entrance to Shusha, where on May 8 the few vehicles of the advancing Karabakh troops moved along the serpentine Stepanakert-Shusha highway.
Developing an offensive along the Shusha-Lachin highway, the Karabakh detachments established control over the settlements located on the highway.
In one of these operations, my good comrade Avet Grigoryan died, with whom, during the “emergency” period, we together prepared materials for underground radio and leaflets aimed at military personnel. Born in Leninakan, into a family of Armenian refugees from Cilicia, who repatriated from Syria to the USSR after World War II, Avet in his youth lived for some time in Moscow, on the then criminal Taganka, from where he brought a tattoo and the nickname “Greek”. Having married a Karabakh girl, he moved to Stepanakert, and when the events began, he became one of the activists of the movement, serving his 30 days of arrest in Novocherkassk in 1990, which is mandatory for this category of people.
Three children were left without a father, who were raised by his wife Avet Lyudmila, a pediatrician and a well-known public figure in Karabakh. In the summer of 2007, as part of a delegation of the Armenian intelligentsia (at that time a series of meetings of the creative intelligentsia of the parties to the conflict were organized in Stepanakert, Yerevan and Baku), she was in Baku, where at a meeting with Ilham Aliyev, the latter again threatened to solve the Karabakh problem by force. Lyudmila told the Azerbaijani leader directly to his face that she had not come to listen to threats: she lost her husband in the war, her house was destroyed by Grad shells, she knows the value of words and deeds and therefore is completely disappointed by this visit. Aliyev Jr. fell silent, not knowing what to say in response to the brave woman...
Meanwhile, the Karabakh residents reached the Lachin “cordon sanitaire”, which separated the NKR from the Goris region of the Republic of Armenia. Ten days after the liberation of Shushi, Lachin was taken and the barrier was broken through near the Azerbaijani village of Zabukh - where the Karabakh forces failed to do so in the fall of 1918. The blockade was broken, and food and medicine, fuel and weapons began to arrive in the region along the Karabakh “road of life.”
This was the end of the first stage of hostilities. But the “real” war - with air raids on cities, powerful artillery shelling, columns of armored vehicles sent to storm positions, settlements and entire regions - all this was still ahead.
On June 12, 1992, having received weapons and equipment from 4 Soviet divisions and having thousands of mercenaries in the service from among officers, warrant officers, sergeants and soldiers of the former 4th Army, the Azerbaijani side launched an unexpected offensive and occupied the entire Shahumyan and almost the entire Mardakert region and parts of the Martuni and Askeran regions of the NKR. Up to 45 percent of the NKR territory is occupied, more than 60 thousand people became refugees, thousands were killed and wounded, hundreds went missing.
Created in August State Committee Defense (GKO) of the NKR, which was headed by the future president of the NKR (1994-1997) and the Republic of Armenia (1998-2008) Robert Kocharyan. The State Defense Committee and the Self-Defense Committee, headed since the spring of 1992 by Serzh Sargsyan (since 1993 - Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, then Minister of National Security, Defense, Prime Minister; since February 2008 - President of the Republic of Armenia) carried out a general mobilization and reformed the self-defense forces , bringing them together into a single Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army.
In September-December during defensive battles The offensive of the Azerbaijani troops was finally stopped, and they themselves were pretty exhausted.
In February-March 1993, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army launched a counter-offensive, liberating most of the Mardakert region, and at the end of March it unexpectedly launched a strike on the Kelbajar region. The latter, together with the northern part of the Lachin region, which was still controlled by Baku, fell in early April. Thus, the threat to the NKR from the Lachin-Kelbajar region of Nagorno-Karabakh was finally eliminated, and a strong rear was created from the west of the republic.
During the summer-autumn of 1993, the cities of Agdam and Fuzuli and partially the districts of the same name were taken successively; completely - Kubatly, Jebrail and Zangelan regions of the former AzSSR. About 380 thousand Azerbaijanis, together with the Azerbaijani army, left the territories of the above-mentioned regions of the former Azerbaijan SSR.
In the winter of 1993-1994. The Azerbaijani army launched a large-scale offensive using hundreds of armored vehicles and aircraft, with the participation of thousands of mercenaries from the CIS countries and up to one and a half thousand Afghan Mujahideen. This campaign led to heavy casualties on the warring sides, especially Azerbaijan, but did not fundamentally change anything. At the end of April 1994, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army liberated part of the territory in the northeast of the Mardakert region of the NKR and entered the Aghdam-Barda highway, “riding” it near the Mirbashir region of the AR.
Thanks to the mediation efforts of the Russian Federation, an indefinite ceasefire has been in effect in the region since May 12, 1994.
According to the head of the Russian mediation mission, Vladimir Kazimirov, “Baku did not comply with the most important demand for a ceasefire for more than a year, and failed in 1993-1994. four agreements on this and other peacekeeping initiatives. There are documents to this effect. It is no coincidence that the UN Security Council, just after the breakdown of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan in October 1993 and all 4 resolutions on Karabakh, stopped adopting them... Baku agreed to a truce not because of the resolutions, but in the face of the threat of complete collapse. Previously, they did not move towards reconciliation, but in May 1994 they suddenly began to rush it” 21 .
As for the results of the war, they are visible on the map we have placed, as well as in the document about the occupied territories and refugees given in the appendices. The latter clearly shows that the statements disseminated by the Azerbaijani side everywhere and at the highest level about “the occupied 20 percent of the territory of the Azerbaijan Republic and a million refugees” are an ordinary lie (in fact, the Azerbaijani Republic controls 15 percent of the territory of the NKR; and the NKR controls 8 percent of the territory of the former AzSSR). Which, by the way, demonstrates the futility of the negotiation process in the current situation: how can a serious agreement be reached when one of the parties to the conflict bases its position and demands on outright and deliberate lies, which are repeated daily by propaganda, diplomats and the president of this country?
Therefore, concluding the conversation about the Karabakh war, let us turn to some issues of covering the war, which, almost a decade and a half after its end, continue to alienate the peoples of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the entire region as a whole from the long-awaited peace.

Asymmetry in coverage of events

14 years have passed since the end of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh war, much has already been forgotten not only by the world community, but even in the CIS, including the countries of the region themselves. Under these conditions, the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance and the influential centers of power behind it conduct permanent and aggressive propaganda aimed at distorting the origins and history of the conflict, the course of military operations, and the essence of individual events. Some events are hushed up and others are emphasized in every possible way.
Let's look at specific examples of the asymmetrical coverage of war crimes committed during the war by Western, and partly Russian, media. In particular, they one-sidedly presented cases when the Azerbaijani side was the injured party, practically ignoring the crimes of the Azerbaijani army against the people of the NKR during the war.
Above, we mentioned twice the tragic death of the residents of the Azerbaijani (until the early 1970s, by the way, Armenian) village of Khojaly, which occurred after the assault on this village by the NKR self-defense forces, in a field near the Azerbaijani city of Agdam. Every year in the Republic of Azerbaijan on February 26, they remember the “atrocities of the Armenians” and organize events dedicated to the memory of the victims of the tragic “events in Khojaly”.
Meanwhile, already in this very definition of events there is a false vector. Indeed, during the assault on Khojaly there were practically no casualties among civilians in the village itself.
Of the dead, some found their death on the territory of the Askeran region. The riot police, driven out of the village, not wanting to disarm and surrender, decided to try to break through outside the corridor left for civilians. They drove some of the retreating into the forest to break through under their cover. After they destroyed one of the Karabakh posts, other posts opened machine-gun fire to kill, not discerning in the pre-dawn twilight who was who in the crowd approaching them, from where the fire was also coming.
There were also casualties from this fire due to the human shield of civilians on the Karabakh side. It was there that a familiar local television cameraman, Sergei Ambartsumyan, died, with whom we did a report for the Russian Vesti in August 1991 from the besieged village of Karintak, near Shusha. Let us also add that at these posts there were people who daily lost relatives and friends during the shelling of Stepanakert and the border villages near Agdam, near which everything happened.
And the killed civilians captured in the terrible video footage were found 11-12 km from Khojaly, in a field between the Armenian village of Nakhichevanik, which is on the administrative border with the Agdam region of the former Azerbaijan SSR, and Azerbaijani positions near Agdam.
That is, the tragic events, at a minimum, occurred not in Khojaly, but in a completely different place.
Meanwhile, in recent years, Azerbaijani media reports have omitted this fact and provided false information. For example, the APA news agency reported on April 12, 2008: “On February 26, 1992, Armenian aggressors captured the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly. Innocent people were brutally killed in the attack.”
On July 7, 2008, the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic exposed another propaganda fake by Baku, which tried to distort what happened in Khojaly through a fake photograph posted on a number of Azerbaijani websites.
“According to the Azerbaijani side, the propaganda value of this photograph obviously lies in the fact that in addition to the many corpses of civilians in the foreground, the outskirts of some settlement are visible in the background, which, in theory, should give credence to Baku’s version of massacres Azerbaijanis in Khojaly. Meanwhile, the color version of the above photograph completely refutes this in terms of the appearance of the dead, their clothing, etc. In fact, this photograph is directly related to the events in Kosovo. It is in this capacity that the photograph, along with many others, is exhibited or mentioned in at least one Serbian, one Albanian and one specialized German forum, on the Internet page of the reputable publication The New York Times, etc.
It is curious that some websites, for example, the official website of Azerbaijan about the events in Khojaly (www.khojaly.org), having come to their senses, removed this fake from their pages. However, on others, including on the page of the website of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation (www.azerbaijan.az), revered in Azerbaijan, she continues to show off shamelessly” 22 .
Further. From year to year, the number of victims declared by the Azerbaijani side is retroactively growing. A few days after the assault on Khojaly, Azerbaijani officials put the figure at 100 killed, a week later - 1234; the parliamentary commission clarified it - 450; The decree “on the genocide of Azerbaijanis” issued by Heydar Aliyev speaks of thousands killed.
Speaking at the OSCE Council in December 1993, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan announced 800 killed. And in 1999, announcing his intention to appeal to the International Court of Justice, the Secretary of State for national issues I. Orudzhev named the following figures: 600 killed, 500 wounded, 1275 prisoners.
The Azerbaijani “525th newspaper”, reporting in November 2007 about the upcoming demonstration of representatives of the Turkish and Azerbaijani diasporas in Berlin in connection with the “Khojaly genocide”, stated: “during the capture of this city in one night... 613 civilians were killed with particular cruelty, including 63 children, 106 women, 70 old people” 23.
Meanwhile, according to official Azerbaijani evidence, at the time of the assault there were not so many civilians in Khojaly. Most of the approximately 2-2.5 thousand residents of Khojaly, that is, those who actually lived in the village and were not registered in it during the period of rapid construction, left the village ahead of time.
Thus, at the end of April 1993 in Prague, at the CSCE Conference, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan distributed document No. 249, entitled “List of Azerbaijani-populated and mixed villages in the upper part of Karabakh, occupied by the Armenian armed forces.” Opposite the name “Khojaly” in the “population” column in this document there was a number: 855.
Fantastic figures and ideas about Khojaly are gradually migrating to the works of some Russian researchers. For example, in the book of a popular researcher today military history Alexey Shishov “Military conflicts of the 20th century”, in the section dedicated to the Karabakh conflict, we read: “In February, the second largest city of Nagorno-Karabakh, Khojaly (modern Azerbaijani transcription of the name - author’s note), inhabited by Azerbaijanis, was taken” 24 .
At the same time, it is known that Khojaly not only was not a city (of which there were three in the NKAO besides Stepanakert: Shusha, Mardakert and Martuni), but was not even among the ten largest villages of the NKAO-NKR.
And in Nikolai Zenkovich’s new book “Ilham Aliyev”, published in 2008 and representing another apologetics of the Aliyev clan (a year earlier, his book “Heydar Aliyev. Zigzags of Fate”, which we also referred to in the first chapter), was published and completely fantastic figures, clearly borrowed from Azeragitprop: “On the night of February 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed forces attacked the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly with a population of 6,000 people” 25 ...
In the first ten days of March 1992, the author of this book, together with the Yerevan correspondent of the Interfax agency and two Azerbaijani colleagues from the Russian Service of Radio Liberty, were invited to the office of the Memorial human rights center. Azerbaijani correspondents Ilya Balakhanova and Vugar Khalilov brought a videotape with a recording of the scene of the death of Khojaly residents, made by Baku television journalists from aboard a military helicopter and directly on the field.
These creepy shots alternated, sometimes repeated from a different angle. Almost everyone present then agreed that the number of deaths captured on film did not exceed 50-60 people. All other recordings and photographs that were later shown on television and published in various media, one way or another, were part of the recording we saw in Memorial. True, later “Memorial” spoke about 181 bodies of Khojaly residents who died near Agdam.
The film also showed that the bodies of the dead were scattered over a large area, in an open field. A few kilometers from the shooting location, a certain settlement was visible, in which, with the maximum magnification of the image, the cameraman recognized the urban-type settlement of Askeran, the regional center of the NKR region of the same name, located on the Stepanakert-Agdam highway between Khojaly and Agdam, approximately in the middle between them. Which also confirmed: the fact of mass murder did not take place in Khojaly, and not during the assault on the village.
After the death of civilians, a scandal broke out in Baku, which resulted in the forced resignation of President Ayaz Mutalibov, under the threat of an uprising of military units subordinate to the Popular Front. A month after his resignation, Mutalibov gave an interview to Czech journalist Dana Mazalova, which was published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Speaking about Khojaly, Mutalibov, in particular, said: “As those Khojaly residents who escaped say, this was all organized so that there was a reason for my resignation. Some force was at work to discredit the president. I don’t think that the Armenians, who are very clear and knowledgeable about such situations, could allow the Azerbaijanis to receive documents incriminating them of fascist actions... If I say that this is the fault of the Azerbaijani opposition, they may say that I am slandering them. But the general background of the reasoning is that the corridor through which people could leave was nevertheless left by the Armenians. Why would they shoot then? Especially in the territory close to Agdam, where by that time there were enough forces to go out and help people” 26.
Almost 10 years later, the Azerbaijani ex-president confirmed his idea in an interview with the magazine “New Time”: “It was obvious that the execution of the Khojaly residents was organized by someone to remove power in Azerbaijan” 27 .
Independent Azerbaijani cameraman Chingiz Mustafayev, who filmed on February 28 and March 2, 1992, also doubted the official version and began his own investigation. However, in June 1992, he was killed while filming military action under unclear circumstances.
Another Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev from the opposition independent magazine “Monitor” spent ten days in the NKR and adjacent territories in February 2005, which he spoke about in his materials and interviews. He also allowed himself to doubt the veracity of Baku’s official version of the death of a group of Khojaly residents:
“...Once a few years ago, I met with Khojaly refugees temporarily living in Nafatalan, who openly admitted to me...that even a few days before the offensive, the Armenians continuously warned the population about the planned operation through loudspeakers, inviting the civilian population to leave the village and go out from the encirclement through the humanitarian corridor along the Karkar River. According to the Khojaly residents themselves, they took advantage of this corridor, and indeed, the Armenian soldiers located behind the corridor did not open fire on them. For some reason, some soldiers from the PFA battalions led some of the Khojaly residents to the village of Nakhichevanik, which at that time was under the control of the Askeran battalion of Armenians. And the rest was covered at the foot of the Aghdam region with an artillery salvo.
...Having familiarized myself with the geographical area, I can say with complete conviction that speculation about the absence of an Armenian corridor is without foundation. There really was a corridor, otherwise the Khojaly residents, completely surrounded and isolated from the outside world, would not have been able to break through the rings and get out of the encirclement. But, having crossed the area beyond the Karkar River, the line of refugees split up, and for some reason some of the Khojaly residents headed towards Nakhichevanik. It seems that the PFA battalions did not strive for the liberation of the Khojaly residents, but for more blood on the way to the overthrow of A. Mutalibov” 28.
A few days after the publication of E. Fatullayev’s first report from Nagorno-Karabakh in Monitor, on March 2, 2005, the editor of the magazine, Elmar Huseynov, was shot dead by an unknown person at the entrance of his own house in Baku. “Monitor” was reputed to be the most radical opposition magazine and had the highest circulation among Azerbaijani weeklies. Criticism by the magazine ruling authorities The AR has repeatedly caused retaliation in the form of political and judicial persecution of both the editor himself and other journalists, financial sanctions, and temporary closure of the magazine. However, it never came to the point of an assassination attempt. This happened only after Fatullayev’s reports were published in Monitor.
At the time the book was submitted, Einulla Fatullayev himself had been in prison for almost two years, convicted on a whole bunch of charges, including high treason...
In the footage shown at the Memorial meeting, many children were seen among the dead. They were almost half of all those killed, filmed on video in the field between the Armenian Nakhichevanik and the Azerbaijani Agdam.
In the chapter “Massacre in Sumgait,” we cited the words of the Armenian journalist Samvel Shahmuradyan, who devoted several years to investigating the Sumgait events, that there were no casualties among children during the Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and Mingachevir: “Although there were attempts. The bandits were stopped not only by the pleas of the parents, but also by the mentions of other gang members that we do not kill children... I talked with a seriously wounded woman. She doesn’t know what happened to her husband. The last time she saw him was lying in blood. But when she begged the bandits not to touch the children, they told her: “We don’t touch the children. Are we Armenians? We are not Armenians" 29.
Obviously, the remark of the pogromists that they did not touch the children, since “they are not Armenians,” meant, in accordance with the logic of the organizers and ideologists of the pogroms, that “Armenians are killing Azerbaijani children.” If back in 1988 such conversations and rumors were in circulation among the Azerbaijani masses (like “a carriage of children with severed fingers”), then one can imagine how convincing an argument for the “barbarism of the Armenians” became for the Azerbaijani society the fact of the mass death of Khojaly residents, including many children.
Let's compare the attitude of official Azerbaijani propaganda to two tragedies: the massacre in Sumgait and the death of Khojaly residents in a field near Agdam.
Sumgait. In a big city, in front of tens of thousands of people, for three days there were first rallies with anti-Armenian slogans and inflammatory calls, and then Armenian pogroms. Many hundreds of people testified as witnesses, dozens were arrested, and a number of trials took place. Official Azerbaijani propaganda claims that the pogrom was organized by “Armenian nationalists” to discredit the Azerbaijanis.
Khojaly. At a distance of 11-12 km from this settlement, in an open field, in a neutral zone between the posts of Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijani armed formations, unknown persons shoot a group of retreating residents of Khojaly. Everything happens without witnesses. It is known, and senior officials in Baku admit this, that the Karabakh forces left a corridor for the retreat of civilians, along which hundreds of Khojaly residents successfully reached Azerbaijani positions near Aghdam. The very access of the Karabakh Armenians to the site of the massacre is practically impossible. Meanwhile, a day later, someone returns to the field again to desecrate some of the corpses before foreign journalists visit the scene of the tragedy again.
In this case, official Azerbaijani propaganda unequivocally states: the murder is the work of Armenians, although even many of the former Azerbaijani leaders do not believe this version. Above we cited the opinion of ex-president Mutalibov. And ex-Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan Rahim Gaziev said that “a trap was prepared for Mutalibov” in Khojaly.
Thus, the organizers of the massacre of Khojaly residents achieved two goals at once: they removed A. Mutalibov, who became unnecessary after the collapse of the USSR, and received a reason to start a noisy campaign accusing the Armenians of inhumane methods of warfare.
At the same time, it seemed to fade into the background terrible truth that from February 13, the Azerbaijani army began to methodically destroy the 55,000-strong city of Stepanakert using “Grads,” whose residents, even if they wanted to leave the blockade of Karabakh, simply had nowhere to go.
All this fit well within the framework of a number of actions of the Turkish special services that took place both earlier and later. Similar actions took place not only in Transcaucasia, but also in the Balkans, where the intervention of Ankara’s special services in the war in Bosnia was quite obvious. It is known that during the Serbian siege of Sarajevo, at least three times certain special services organized major terrorist attacks, the victims of which were Muslim Bosniaks.
“Every time the Western powers prepare to use force against the Serbs, the “mysterious” immediately comes to light mass kill. And every time, stunning images spread throughout the world... the media pronounce a guilty verdict without bothering to investigate, and public opinion, indignant against the Serbs, approves of all the military plans of the West” 30 .
In 1995, on the eve of NATO bombing of Bosnian Serb positions, dozens of people in Sarajevo were killed when a mine hit a line for bread at a market in the Muslim part of the city. However, it later became clear that in this case, as in the other two, Serbian forces were only unfoundedly blamed: according to UN reports and other sources, all three terrorist attacks were carried out by Izetbegovic's Muslim nationalists in order to blame the bloodshed on the opposite side 31 .
Literally just before the publication of this book, a message came from Belgrade about the arrest of the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic. Numerous reports from NTV and other Russian programs, likely borrowed from Western television news, showed clips from the Bosnian War. The author recognized many of them as recordings from 1995, made immediately after a mine explosion at a market in Sarajevo. Once already refuted, the false accusation is again used at the right moment.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Popular Front Abulfaz Elchibey (Aliyev), who soon after the resignation of Ayaz Mutalibov became the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, previously openly stated: “The more blood is shed, the better the courage and ideology of the nation will be cemented.” And the Gray Wolves organization, patronized by the Turkish secret services, had its own Azerbaijani branch, whose leader Iskander Hamidov became the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan under President Elchibey.
That is, we can quite confidently assume that the murder of Khojaly residents in a field near Aghdam is nothing more than an action of Turkish and Azerbaijani special services, designed to justify in the eyes of the world community Baku’s barbaric methods of waging war against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
It is no coincidence that back in 1918, Stefan Steiger, a representative of the Austro-Hungarian military press center in Ottoman Turkey, said about the methods of Turkish propaganda: “Before organizing the massacre of the Armenian population, Turkish civil and military authorities, as a rule, spread lies that “Armenians “These are the biggest criminals in the world, and the Turks are innocent victims of Armenian barbarism.” Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel spoke approximately in this spirit at a press conference in Moscow on May 26, 1992. The author of this book then asked him a question: why did Turkey talk about human rights only now (that is, after the capture of Shusha and the breakthrough of the Lachin corridor), and before that, when the rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh were trampled upon, it remained silent? S. Demirel stated in a rather harsh tone that he was not going to discuss this issue, since “after the genocide in Khojaly” everything is clear.”
But here is another terrible event of the same period of the war, many witnesses of which survived and gave relevant testimony. But the “free media” both in the West and in Russia practically ignored him.
On the night of April 10, the Azerbaijani army, with the support of armored vehicles of the 23rd (Kirovabad) division, attacked the 3,000-strong border village of Maraga, Mardakert region of the NKR. The local self-defense detachment was forced to retreat, and the village passed into the hands of the Azerbaijanis for 4 hours. It happened so quickly that many residents did not have time to move away. When the united self-defense units liberated the village, a monstrous picture appeared before their eyes: disfigured corpses sawn into pieces, burned bodies, dozens of people taken prisoner.
Baroness Caroline Cox and a group of Christian Solidarity International members were in Nagorno-Karabakh at the time, and the mission became aware of the tragedy. In the book by K. Cox and John Eibner, “Ethnic Cleansing Continues. War in Nagorno-Karabakh" 32 says about visiting Maragha:
“The group that went there to gather facts saw the surviving villagers in a state of shock, their burnt and still smoldering houses, charred corpses and naked human bones lying where people’s heads were cut off with a saw, and their bodies were burned in front of their family members... To verify the veracity of the stories told, the delegation asked residents to open some of the fresh graves. Overcoming pain and suffering, they did this, allowing the headless and charred bodies to be photographed..."
“The footage taken in those days in Maragha shows evidence of the terrible massacre that took place here: decapitated and dismembered bodies, the remains of children, bloody ground and pieces of bodies in those places where the Azerbaijanis sawed living people... We saw sharp sickles with dried blood that used for dismemberment" 33.
On the initiative of Karabakh journalist and head of the Milky Way studio Narine Aghabalyan, a CD with terrible footage and evidence was released on the 15th anniversary of the Maragha tragedy. N. Aghabalyan said in an interview with the online publication “Caucasian Knot” 34 that, according to available data, on April 10, 1992, 81 people were brutally killed in Maragha, 67 were captured. Some of the hostages were later exchanged, but the fate of many remained the same still remain unknown.
As mentioned above, there were many dozens of eyewitnesses to the massacre in Maragha. Human bodies, sawed and chopped into pieces, burned, beheaded - everything was recorded on film. What was the reaction of the Western media to the tragedy that occurred in Maragha? Yes, none!
Baroness Caroline Cox says: “The English newspaper The Daily Telegraph agreed with me on an exclusive report (about the Maraga tragedy - author’s note) on its pages, so I did not contact other newspapers. However, time passed without any publication. I called the editor-in-chief, and he said that he had decided not to publish the material. “But a few weeks ago you published a report on the events in Khojaly, why don’t you want to publish the truth about the tragedy in Maraga?” - I asked. He replied: “I don’t think we should trade in tragedies while maintaining balance.” And hung up" 35.
Why did Western, primarily American and British media, take such an asymmetrical approach in covering the Karabakh war? And later – also in relation to the post-war period?
Everything is very simple: the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh interested them from the point of view of human rights violations only when its exaggeration benefited the disintegration of the USSR. When this happened, the new independent states became the support for the West that allowed it to prevent the possible restoration of any union in the space of the former USSR. Moreover, led by Russia, towards which notes of irritation and hostility have slipped through the United States and its allies throughout the post-Soviet years.
When the Soviet army, which shelled and deported Karabakh villages, was replaced by the Azerbaijani national army, which was widely using Grad and aviation against the Karabakh people, Nagorno-Karabakh and the rights of its inhabitants were no longer of interest to the Atlantic alliance. On the contrary, the suffering of the “new democracies” from the supposedly Moscow-supported “separatists” just began to correspond to the political line of both Washington and London.
In August 1993, the Parisian Russian-language newspaper “Russian Thought” aptly spoke on this matter: “It is curious how the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, who in the past were always awarded the protection of Monde, lost his sympathy from the moment when, with the help of the Russians, their position seemed to have become improve. Le Monde now sympathizes more with Azerbaijan, despite the fact that “one of the most heavy-handed KGB agents came to power there,” as the American press calls Aliyev. Indeed, everything is known about Aliyev’s past, and his future – if he remains in power – is not difficult to predict, just as it is very easy to calculate in which direction his policies will be directed. Nor would we be surprised by his alliance with the newly minted democrat Shevardnadze, who has always been revered by the Western press as “a cunning secret agent of democracy,” and now this press is ready to take his side against Abkhazia, about which it knows little...” 36
Attempts to appeal to the international community in order to divert its attention from the ethnic cleansing and pogroms carried out in the AzSSR - the Republic of Azerbaijan were carried out by official Baku before. In the chapter “First Blood” we already said that after the January 1990 Armenian pogroms in Baku, which surpassed the massacre in Sumgait, Azerbaijani propaganda returned to the issue of Azerbaijani refugees from the Armenian SSR. At the same time, the usual lies and disinformation for this propaganda were used.
A similar “stuffing” into the “democratic” media associated with the West was undertaken by the already mentioned Arif Yunusov exactly a year after the Armenian pogroms in Baku. Back in 1991, he published an article “Pogroms in Armenia in 1988-1989” 37 in the weekly human rights newspaper Express Chronicle. The article was accompanied by a list of names of 215 citizens of Azerbaijani nationality who allegedly died during the pogroms. Previously, it was known about 25 Azerbaijanis who died during the events of November-December 1989 in the Armenian SSR.
These events were in the nature of armed clashes, during which there were casualties on both sides, and after which followed a mass exodus of more than 100 thousand of the Azerbaijani population of the Armenian SSR (that is, all Azerbaijanis, with the exception of those who left earlier, exchanging their apartments, houses with Baku Armenians). They took place mainly in the north of the republic - 20 of the 25 Azerbaijanis and most of the 17 Armenians died there - shortly after the arrival of a stream of Armenian refugees from Kirovabad and surrounding Armenian villages. It is significant that, unlike Yerevan, where there was practically no Azerbaijani population, no internal troops were stationed in the rural areas of the Armenian SSR at all, although more than 90 percent of the Azerbaijani residents of the republic lived in rural areas.
By the winter of 1991, when Yunusov’s material appeared, the Armenian KGB, like the Azerbaijani one, was actually pursuing an independent policy, although not in line with, but against the line of the center. In particular, in the spring of 1991, a scandal broke out in Moscow when it became clear that the Yerevan security officers had transported most of the emergency stock of weapons from their arsenal to Nagorno-Karabakh.
On behalf of the chief of the Armenian KGB, Usik Harutyunyan, 38 a thorough additional check was carried out on each person listed on Yunusov’s list. It turned out that with the exception of 25 who actually died, the rest of the people indicated on Yunusov’s list were not victims of clashes or pogroms. They were either never registered in the republic at all; 62 people left it safely, and the residential addresses of many of them were known; or died in the Armenian SSR even before the events, died or were killed on the territory of the AzSSR and the third republics of the USSR.
For example, one “killed” person went to live in the RSFSR in 1987; another moved to the Kustanai region of the Kazakh SSR in 1984 and his address was attached, and so on. 20 people indicated as killed during the pogroms actually died, but not as a result of violent death. Moreover, one died in a car accident back in 1963, and the other, listed in the “Yunusov list” as “died from beatings,” “on March 18, 1988, while grazing cattle on a railway stage... fell under a handcar, as a result of which he died on the spot , in this accident, 17 heads of small cattle died at the same time” 39.
According to U. Harutyunyan, “we have documented that the compiled list... is exaggerated almost 10 times. Didn’t the drafters of the document think about the fact that they were blaspheming their own people by counting the living among the dead? It seems that the most important thing in this case is to seek the truth for one’s own people. Stop embittering him with lies and making a beast out of him” 40.
Finally, some of the names of Armenian functionaries cited by Yunusov were invented. In a word, Mr. A. Yunusov was caught in a deliberate lie, which, however, does not prevent the same Western journalists and political scientists from referring to his falsifications in their works. The already mentioned Thomas de Waal in his book “The Black Garden”, speaking about the exodus of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR, is based precisely on the “Yunusov list” published in the “Express Chronicle” 41.
At the same time, in the preface to his book, T. de Waal duplicitously calls on the reader “not to selectively quote individual passages from the book for the sake of one’s own political interests” 42 . Truly, the devil is in the details!
Cynical and unfounded falsifications remain in the arsenal of Baku agitprop today. Giving A. Yunusov a fair head start in his fabrications, Candidate of Historical Sciences Israfil Mamedov said on Azerbaijani television on March 25, 2001: “In general, nowhere will you find an analogue of the tragedy committed against the Azerbaijanis on the territory of present-day Armenia. Quite recently, on November 12, 1988, in the Spitak region, a few weeks before the earthquake, 70 Azerbaijani children (note, we are talking about children again - author’s note) were forced into a pipe and its ends were welded shut. And 25 children were put on buses and sent somewhere. 350 people were killed that day. However, the world does not know about this” 43.

Military myths and tales

The reasoning of idle journalists and political scientists on the topic of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict, both then and today, is very reminiscent of Balzaminov’s dialogue with his alleged mother-in-law from the film “Balzaminov’s Marriage,” based on the works of N. Ostrovsky:
“Do you read newspapers?
- I’m reading, sir.
- So I wanted to ask you, haven’t you read anything about Napoleon? They say he wants to go to Moscow again!
- Well, where is he now, sir? He had not yet managed to get settled in his place. They write that he decorates palaces and rooms.
- Well, thank God. Yes, tell me again. They say that King Pharaoh began to emerge from the sea at night, and with an army. It will show itself, and it will go away again, it will show itself, and it will go away again! They say it's just before the end!
- It may very well be!
- How to live in the world? What passions! Times are so hard! Yes, they say, the white blackamoor is rising against us, leading 200 million troops with him!
- Where is he from, the white blackamoor?
- From White Arapia!
- A! The newspapers write about this somehow mutely...”
Turkish-Azerbaijani propaganda has been operating in approximately the same spirit for many years, deliberately distorting and dissecting the events of the second Karabakh war of 1991-1994 to suit the goals and interests of pan-Turkism.
The most important military-political myth, especially often used today by Azerbaijani and Turkish propaganda: Armenia committed aggression against Azerbaijan in order to seize Nagorno-Karabakh from the latter.
It seems that all the previous chapters of this book - about what preceded the events of 1988, how events developed after February 20 of that year until the collapse of the USSR - themselves refute this myth. Let us add to this some important details of the period of hostilities.
From the end of September 1991 to May 18, 1992, the NKR was under complete blockade. Communication with “mainland” Armenia was possible only by helicopters. It is impossible to transport any heavy military equipment by Mi-8 civil aviation helicopters. It is impossible to transfer it (except perhaps for certain types of guns or the Grad installation) with Mi-26 helicopters, which, moreover, were only at the disposal of the army and were only occasionally allocated for transporting the wounded, sick and evacuees.
In March 1992, by the way, such a helicopter, transporting the wounded and sick from the Shahumyan region of Nagorno-Karabakh to Yerevan, was fired at by missiles by Azerbaijani Mi-24 combat helicopters over the Kelbajar region and made an emergency landing; more than 20 people were killed and dozens were injured.
That same month, a mercenary pilot flying an Azerbaijani Air Force combat aircraft fired on an Armenian Airlines Yak-40 en route from Stepanakert airport to Yerevan with wounded and sick on board. The pilots were able to land the damaged plane on its belly at the airport of the Armenian regional center of Sisian, in Zangezur; all passengers were saved.
From the above facts it is clear how difficult the blockade of the region was to overcome in the first half of 1992. Therefore, only Armenian volunteers with small arms and light artillery could really strengthen the Karabakh self-defense forces, who, at the risk of their lives, entered the NKR on civil aviation helicopters through the Azerbaijani “cordon sanitaire.”
On May 18, detachments of Karabakh Armenians from Shusha reached Lachin, beyond which, in the town of Zabukh, they united with self-defense units from the Goris region of the Republic of Armenia. That is, the offensive came from the depths of Nagorno-Karabakh in the direction of Lachin, and not vice versa.
Azerbaijani artillery and aviation (note that the Armenian side did not have combat aircraft at all) throughout 1992 and early 1993 shelled and bombed the border areas of the Republic of Armenia. The border Armenian city of Kafan, the administrative center of Zangezur, which was subject to air raids and shelled from guns and mortars, was particularly affected at that time. In October-November 1992, Kafan was shelled almost daily; During one of the attacks, a shell exploded in a line for bread, killing 28 people at once.
There was intense shelling of the eastern shore of Lake Sevan, especially the city of Krasnoselsk, where many ethnic Russians, the so-called Molokans, lived. These attacks especially intensified when the Azerbaijani army captured the Armenian village of Artsvashen in the same Krasnoselsky district in August 1992, located in an enclave 46 km 2 outside the main territory of the region. In Stalin's times, this large settlement, which occupied an important strategic position, turned from part of the territory of the Armenian SSR into an enclave on the territory of the AzSSR.
That is, in 1992, the independent Republic of Azerbaijan also captured part of the territory independent Republic Armenia, but this fact has not received any assessment from such international organizations as the OSCE and the UN!
Russian Ambassador Vladimir Stupishin, who arrived at the request of the local Russian population in the city of Krasnoselsk during the shelling, said in December 1992: “There is no such idea in the name of which one can sacrifice other people’s lives, drive women and children into basements, destroy civilian objects, leave people behind.” no light, no bread, no heat. And if there is such an idea, it’s a criminal idea” 44.
However, here we must keep in mind that Baku did not and does not at all consider the barbaric bombing of civilians during the war to be something unacceptable. From the point of view of the Baku rulers, where this happened (including the Armenian Zangezur) constituted “Azerbaijani lands”, over which it was necessary to restore “previously lost sovereignty.” And the foreign population was an unnecessary addition to these territories, with which the “owners” could do as they pleased.
Without learning lessons from the past, Azerbaijani leaders today continue to reason in approximately the same spirit.
Interesting facts regarding the true vector of aggression can also be gleaned from Azerbaijani sources themselves. Thus, in 1995, the Azerbaijani Center for Strategic and International Studies published Jangir Arasli’s book “The Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict. Military aspect." The book contains an interesting document: table No. 4 “The beginning of the use of modern weapons and forms of warfare by the parties to the conflict.” It follows from the table that “defending itself from Armenian aggression,” Azerbaijan was the first to use during the war:

BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system (January 13, 1992);
Mi-24 fire support helicopter (February 13, 1992);
tactical helicopter landing (March 5, 1992);
attack aircraft Su-25 (May 8, 1992);
parachute landing (September 18, 1992).

According to the same Jangir Arasly, the Armenian side was the first to use only portable anti-aircraft missile system"Needle". As you know, the latter is not an offensive weapon, but intended for use against enemy aircraft. On January 30, 1992, he shot down an Mi-8 helicopter transporting a unit of Azerbaijani soldiers from Aghdam to Shusha, shortly after an unsuccessful attack on the Armenian village of Karintak near Shusha.
As we see, specific numbers and facts do not indicate “Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan,” but rather the latter’s aggression against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the Republic of Armenia.
Another myth. At the philistine level, many in the Republic of Azerbaijan are quite sincerely convinced that their country lost the war not to the Karabakh Armenians, who were supported by Armenian volunteers, and not even to “Armenia the aggressor.” And, it turns out... Russia!
This myth was generated by the reluctance of the Azerbaijani mass consciousness, especially representatives of the younger generation, to come to terms with the idea that the “broadly striding” Azerbaijan lost the war to the Armenians, who, according to a false belief, were somehow considered incapable of war. Although it is known that in both tsarist and Soviet times they performed quite well in wars, while the “Caucasian Tatars,” like other Muslims of the Caucasus and Turkestan, were not drafted into the army at all under the tsar.
Perhaps Soviet propaganda played a cruel joke here, which, in order to prevent separatism in the Armenian SSR, for decades successfully hammered into the consciousness of the local society the idea of the sacrificial nature of the Armenian people, their inability to take any independent steps without the help of the Kremlin. An interesting fact: during the years of Soviet power, weapons completely disappeared from the traditional Armenian costume. Although in pre-revolutionary photographs, dance and choral groups from the same Shushi were always dressed in traditional mountain costume with daggers.
The myth of the “Russian hand,” although very tenacious in Azerbaijani society, is broken quite simply. Combat losses on the Armenian side are known almost by name. During the war, 5856 soldiers died, of which 3291 were residents of the NKR (56% of the dead). The remaining 2,565 dead, with the exception of just over a hundred citizens of foreign countries (mostly of Armenian origin), were citizens of the Republic of Armenia. Among the dead were several dozen volunteers of Russian and other “non-Armenian” nationalities from the CIS countries.
Among the dead on the Armenian side were also 1,264 civilians from the NKR - their overwhelming majority - and the border regions of the Republic of Armenia. 596 people - military and civilian (among the latter, almost exclusively NKR citizens) went missing.
On the Azerbaijani side, according to various sources, the casualties alone ranged from 25 to 30 thousand people. By the way, during the war years, official Baku sometimes hid the true extent of its losses, declaring the dead missing and allegedly being held captive in “Armenian dungeons.” Thus, the poor relatives of the victims were reassured, and to the outside world, Azerbaijani propaganda spread fables about secret prisoner of war camps, where internal organs were removed from prisoners for sale abroad.
If the Republic of Azerbaijan waged a war not with the Armenians of Karabakh and not with Armenians in general, but “with the Russian army,” then where are the lists of Russian losses, why is nothing known about this yet?
And if those few Slavs who laid down their lives defending Karabakh are the losses of the “Russian expeditionary force,” then where did such large losses come from on the Azerbaijani side? That is, if you believe this myth, the Azerbaijani army lost to the “Russians”, losing a thousand dead of its citizens per one dead “aggressor”. So isn’t it more logical for Azeragitprop to agree with the real numbers of losses of the real enemy - the Karabakh and “Armenian” Armenians?
Finally, another myth. Spreading since Soviet times fables about the participation of foreign mercenaries on the Armenian side, including “blacks”, “Arabs” and the notorious “Baltic snipers”, official Baku clumsily tried to divert attention from the massive use of mercenaries by the Azerbaijani army.
The latter circumstance was due to the unpopularity of the war among the majority of Azerbaijanis, who were mostly forced into the army. The first ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Armenia, Vladimir Stupishin, visited Baku on September 30, 1992 as part of the Russian delegation led by Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, and later recalled in his memoirs: “Shonia (Walter Shonia, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Azerbaijan - author’s note) ) introduced me to some Azerbaijani officials who immediately attacked the Armenians... accusing them of... using mercenaries in the war with poor, unfortunate Azerbaijan. Naturally, I reminded them of Russian and Ukrainian pilots flying on Azerbaijani planes and even being captured by the bad Karabakhites 45...
The interlocutor tried to convince me that Azerbaijani youth are almost enthusiastically striving for the Karabakh front. Yes, I reacted, probably because of this enthusiasm many of the dead have holes in the back of their heads. The Azerbaijani already choked. Apparently, he never heard such objections” 46.
In general, it must be said that the main principle of Turkish-Azerbaijani propaganda was and remains the “monkey” principle. “Monkey” in journalistic jargon used to be called (when there were no computers and printers yet) a mirror imprint of text that remained on the back of a typewritten sheet when a sheet of copy paper was incorrectly positioned behind it.
So, a “monkey”, a shapeshifter, in propaganda is the attribution of one’s own problems, sins or intentions and one’s own secret desires to the enemy, as well as their fake voicing as if by the opposite party. Among specific examples here is “aggression against Azerbaijan”, “the pogrom tripled by Armenians in Sumgait”, “Armenian atrocities in Khojaly”, Armenian “Arab mercenaries” and so on. At the same time, the methods of disinformation remain the same, whether twenty years ago or today.
For example, the Azerbaijani Trend agency is distributing on the website bakililar.az an interview with the former military commandant of the region of the state of emergency in NKAO and adjacent areas of the AzSSR, Major General Genrikh Malyushkin. The same one who distinguished himself by repression and false attempts to refute the obvious facts of the Memorial mission in the summer of 1990. This military pensioner is a frequent guest of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Moscow and periodically gives Azeragitprop another portion of lies.
A retired major general fantasizes about the topic asked by the correspondent: “How did you know that mercenaries fought on the Armenian side? - When we managed to neutralize them, we tried to talk to them, even with the help of a translator in Armenian. But they didn't understand anything. It was clearly visible that these were mercenaries. Mostly Arabs." Well, why not the white blackamoor from “Balzaminov’s Marriage”?
Meanwhile, on the Azerbaijani side, the fights were not at all mythical, not seen by anyone and not presented alive or dead to the public by “blacks”, “Arabs” and “blond beasts - snipers”. And quite real pilots and tank crews from the former 4th Army, Turkish military advisers, Chechen troops led by Shamil Basayev and up to one and a half thousand Afghan Mujahideen from tribes subordinate to the rebellious Prime Minister of the country Gulbetdin Hekmatyar. Many of the mercenaries were killed, captured, and their documents and evidence became available to local and foreign media.
Turkish advisers trained Azerbaijani units and units, trying not to take direct part in hostilities, although there was information about a number of sabotage raids in which Turkish “commandos” took part. Thousands of Azerbaijani soldiers, including veterans of Afghanistan and other local wars of the Soviet period, underwent training and retraining in Turkey itself.
Personally, Sh. Basayev has repeatedly spoken in his numerous interviews about his participation in the Azerbaijani-Karabakh war, and dozens of Chechen fighters were killed and captured by the Karabakh troops during the fighting. Many captured Chechens were handed over to emissaries from Grozny who arrived in Stepanakert after their assurances that they would stop interfering in the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict.
During the fighting in 1993-1994. The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army also seized documents, including official correspondence from commanders of a number of units of the Azerbaijani army, which spoke about the number of Afghan Mujahideen and related problems.
Here are some excerpts from these documents (with style and spelling preserved), which were presented by the Karabakh side to the mediators, to the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh as evidence of the use of foreign mercenaries by official Baku.
From the acting order Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Colonel I. Aslamov:
“Call 50 (fifty) conscripts-translators with knowledge of the Persian language 47 from the reserves and place them at the disposal of the commander of the military unit 160 training unit. Center "Geranium". 08/19/1993"
The named military unit in Soviet time was a training center where military personnel of the Kirovabad Airborne Division and the GRU special forces brigade stationed there received training. Privatized by the Azerbaijani National Army, Geranium was one of several military units where Afghan mercenaries were retrained before being sent to the front. Below is a series of documents with the original spelling preserved.
From the book of orders of military unit No. 160 for 03.08 – 09.09. 1993.
“There are 691 people on the boiler allowance. Of them:

Military unit 160: officers - 25, warrant officers - 3, sergeants - 65, soldiers - 31, attached. – 53.
Tank battalion: officers - 17, warrant officers - 15, sergeants - 15, soldiers - 80, attached. – 3.
Mujahideen - 453.”

“Order No. 129 September 5, 1993. Geranium Training Center. On the combat side.
...Assume those who went to a military hospital in the city. Ganja military unit 230 from 09/05/1993, 27 (twenty-seven) Mujahideen for inpatient treatment.”
The commander of military unit 160, Colonel D. Lyatifov, in a report addressed to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated October 2, 1993, complains about the Afghan “special contingent”:
“They require: one additional blanket; cigarettes with a filter (they categorically refuse Astra); shoes and uniforms; toilet soap and washcloths; toothpaste and shoe polish; passenger cars (taxi); spices for cooking pilaf; they are not satisfied with the tea available in the warehouse; poultry and dairy products, eggs...
Improvements in the quality of medical care, but a complete lack of medical care. equipment in the medical unit does not allow. The attendance of the medical unit was 1,350 people during the stay and 41 people were hospitalized. One gets the impression that they came to us for treatment, not to fight.
Due to the small number of military personnel (only 37 soldiers, sergeants), it is difficult to carry out service... We have to clean up after them the garbage and dishes that are thrown anywhere.
...The Goranboy executive power distributed 80 aftaf, 48 and 30 teapots in the form of humanitarian aid.”
Colonel D. Lyatifov’s request to the chief of logistics of military unit 200 from No. 236 of September 1993 sounded a cry of despair: “To meet the additional requirements of the command of the special contingent, I ask you to immediately allocate the following items: milk, gatikh, chickens (live), everything necessary for pilaf , electric meat grinder, greens, bell pepper, fruits (various), honey for breakfast, fresh green beans, eggplant, shompala for making shish kebab, drushlyak. The above names should be selected based on 460 (four hundred and sixty) people.”
As noted above, in total there were up to one and a half thousand Afghan Mujahideen in the ranks of the Azerbaijani army in 1993-1994. The Afghan authorities dissociated themselves from these people, because, as already mentioned, they represented the forces of the rebel Prime Minister Hekmatyar, supported by the government of Pakistan, in opposition to official Kabul. The latter, by the way, provided Baku with assistance in training its own pilots, which the Azerbaijani army initially did not have, with a few exceptions, and also actively supported Baku’s positions in the international arena.
The Mujahideen were especially actively used by the Azerbaijani side in the fight against tanks and armored vehicles of the NKR Defense Army, especially during the latter’s counter-offensives. Many Mujahideen died on the battlefield. Despite the fact that it was not in the rules of “fighters for the faith” to surrender, one of them - a certain Bakhtiyar from Mazar-i-Sharif - was captured alive and clearly, so to speak, demonstrated to the world community (he was later released). Interviews with the captured Mujahideen were then published in a number of Russian and foreign media.
The Azerbaijani side has failed to present to the international community evidence of the participation of mercenaries on the Armenian side. It was problematic to consider the few Slavic volunteers who fought on the Karabakh side and were citizens of other countries as such, since they received practically no remuneration for their participation in hostilities. And what kind of rewards and special conditions (remember the requests of the Mujahideen and the unquestioning desire of the Azerbaijani “father-commanders” to satisfy them) could there be in a besieged, hungry, warring Karabakh?
These people, with the exception of some outright adventurers, ended up in Karabakh consciously, based on their own views and beliefs. By the way, there were some “convinced people” on the Azerbaijani side, but they were in an insignificant minority compared to the numerous and well-paid hired specialists: pilots, tank crews, artillerymen.
Even less suitable for the role of mercenaries were the few Armenian volunteers from foreign countries, such as the US-born Monte Melkonyan (Avo), who became famous and died in the Karabakh war. After all, all of them, one way or another, were descendants of the victims of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey and came to Karabakh to protect their compatriots from a similar fate that had already threatened them.
It would be naive to believe that if something similar to Sumgait and Operation Ring happened to the Russian population of any CIS country, there would not be Russian and Russian volunteers among the local combatants, right?
It is probably not at all by chance that during the years of the Karabakh war, many women fought on the Armenian side, as well as veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Among the latter were almost twenty veterans of the 89th Armenian Taman Division, which became famous during the years of that war, the only national division that took part in the assault on Berlin.
The fate of Lieutenant General Christopher Ivanyan seems most surprising. A native of Tbilisi, Ivanyan ended World War II in Prague as a 25-year-old colonel, chief of artillery of the 128th Infantry Division. Then there were a variety of military positions and places of service, the rank of major general. He was dismissed in 1978 “due to age” from the post of commander of the missile and artillery troops of the Trans-Baikal Military District. In fact, Ivanyan was fired for refusing to sign a document testifying to the important role of L.I. Brezhnev in the operation to liberate Kerch in 1944, for which Ivanyan himself deservedly received the Order of Suvorov, 3rd degree. And they collected signatures of veteran generals of the Great Patriotic War on the eve of awarding Brezhnev the Order of Victory in the same 1978, which was awarded to only a few people, including Joseph Stalin and Georgy Zhukov.
By the beginning of the Karabakh war, military pensioner Ivanyan lived in Leningrad. In 1992, the 72-year-old major general went to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he personally took part in military operations and created an artillery training center through which thousands of soldiers and officers went. After the Karabakh war, Lieutenant General Ivanyan commanded one of the brigades of the Armenian army for some time, being the oldest officer in the army and having retired at the age of 80. After his death in 2000, a settlement and a military sports lyceum in Nagorno-Karabakh were named after him.
Here's one of many real stories, which is hard to believe right away. Where are man-made myths?
Meanwhile, the more years pass since the end of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh war of 1991-1994, the more myths and fables are woven in hindsight by forces that truly with diabolical fury reject the realities that were formed by the will and fortitude of the people who threw off the chains of colonial slavery .

_____________________________

1 “Status of Nagorno-Karabakh in political and legal documents and materials.” Library of the Center for Russian-Armenian Initiatives. Yerevan: 1995, pp. 69-70
2 “In Zheleznovodsk - about Karabakh”, “Izvestia”, 09/23/1991.
3 “Izvestia”, November 22, 1991
4 “The people need to be told why all this is happening,” Soyuz, No. 48, November 1991, p. 6
5 “The status of Nagorno-Karabakh in political and legal documents and materials.” Library of the Center for Russian-Armenian Initiatives. Yerevan. 1995, pp. 88-89
6 Scientific notes, issue 2. Unrecognized states South Caucasus. Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov. Moscow. 2008, p. 63
7 “Baku worker”, 01/07/1992
8 T. Musaev, op. article, page 70.
9 Ibid., pp. 68-69.
10 “Izvestia”, November 28, 1991; A. Manasyan, “The conflict between Azerbaijan and NKR in the legal context of the collapse of the USSR”, “Voice of Armenia”, 07.16.1993
11 A. Manasyan, “The conflict between Azerbaijan and NKR in the legal context of the collapse of the USSR”, “Voice of Armenia”, 07/16/1993.
12 V. Stupishin. My mission to Armenia. Moscow. Academia. 2001, p. 49
13 “Izvestia”, 06/19/1992
14 V. Mukhin “The Russian army is hastily leaving Azerbaijan,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 08/12/1992.
15 “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, 11/17/1992.
16 “Izvestia”, 09/08/1992
17 “Izvestia”, 06/04/1992
18 Zakharov V.A., Areshev A.G. Recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia: political and legal aspects, part 1. Moscow: International Humanitarian Foundation “Knowledge”. 2008. P. 83.
19 Dzugaev K. South Ossetia: creating a miracle // Caucasian expert. 2006. No. 4. P. 21.
20 “Russian Thought”, Paris, 04/10/1992
21 Interview with V. Kazimirov to the news agency PanARMENIAN.Net dated September 17, 2007.
22 http://www.nkr.am, 07/07/2008
23 “Kommersant”, 11/29/2007
24 A.V.Shishov. "Military conflicts of the 20th century." Moscow: Veche, 2006, p. 521
25 N.Zenkovich. Ilham Aliyev. A view from Moscow. Moscow: “Yauza” - “EXMO”, 2008, p. 448
26 “I am a humanist. In the shower", "Nezavisimaya Gazeta", 04/02/1992.
27 “New Time”, 03/06/2001
28 These fragments are from Fatullayev’s report published on the Real Azerbaijan website.
29 Sumgayit...Genocide...Glasnost? Yerevan. General “Knowledge” of the ArmSSR. 1990, pp. 53-54
30 Michelle Collon. Oil, PR, war. Crimean Bridge-9d. Moscow. 2002. p. 11
31 Ibid., p. 13
32 Caroline Cox and John Eibner. "Ethnic Cleansing in Progress: War in Nagorno-Karabakh".
33
34 Published on the website 04/09/2007
35 From an interview with K. Cox in the newspaper “Voice of Armenia”, 04/07/2001.
36 Quoted from reprint in the newspaper “Armenian Bulletin”, No. 9 (56), September 1993, p. 1
37 “Express Chronicle”, No. 9, 02.26.1991
38 U. Harutyunyan subsequently died in a plane crash of an Armenian Airlines A-320 plane near Sochi, May 3, 2006
39 “Pogroms in Armenia: judgments, speculation and facts”, “Express Chronicle”, No. 16, 04/16/1991.
40 Ibid.
41 “Black Garden. Armenia and Azerbaijan between peace and war.” Moscow. "Text". 2005, p. 97
42 Ibid., p. 13
43 The transcript of the program was published in the newspaper “Baku Worker”, the administrative body of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in issues dated March 27-30, 2001.
44 V. Stupishin. My mission to Armenia. Moscow: Academia. 2001, pp. 160-161
45 During the war, several mercenary pilots were captured. One of them, Ukrainian Yu. Bilichenko, who was sentenced to death but then pardoned, was widely reported in the Russian media.
46 V. Stupishin. My mission to Armenia. Moscow: Academia. 2001, pp. 61-62
47 Persian, or Farsi, is closely related to Dari, the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan
48 Aftafa - a special vessel with an elongated narrow neck, used in the Islamic East for personal hygiene purposes

On April 2, 2016, the press service of the Armenian Ministry of Defense announced that the Azerbaijani armed forces had gone on the offensive throughout the entire area of contact with the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army. The Azerbaijani side reported that hostilities began in response to shelling of its territory.

The press service of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) stated that Azerbaijani troops launched an offensive in many sectors of the front, using large-caliber artillery, tanks and helicopters. Within a few days official representatives Azerbaijan reported the occupation of several strategically important heights and settlements. On several sections of the front, attacks were repulsed by the NKR armed forces.

After several days of fierce fighting along the entire front line, military representatives from both sides met to discuss the terms of the ceasefire. It was reached on April 5, although after this date the truce was repeatedly violated by both sides. However, in general, the situation at the front began to calm down. The Azerbaijani armed forces began to strengthen the positions captured from the enemy.

The Karabakh conflict is one of the oldest in the former USSR; Nagorno-Karabakh became a hot spot even before the collapse of the country and has been frozen for more than twenty years. Why did it flare up with renewed vigor today, what are the strengths of the warring parties and what should be expected in the near future? Could this conflict escalate into a full-scale war?

To understand what is happening in this region today, you should do small excursion into history. This is the only way to understand the essence of this war.

Nagorno-Karabakh: background to the conflict

The Karabakh conflict has very long historical and ethnocultural roots; the situation in this region worsened significantly in the last years of the Soviet regime.

In ancient times, Karabakh was part of the Armenian kingdom; after its collapse, these lands became part of the Persian Empire. In 1813, Nagorno-Karabakh was annexed to Russia.

Bloody interethnic conflicts took place here more than once, the most serious of which occurred during the weakening of the metropolis: in 1905 and 1917. After the revolution, three states appeared in Transcaucasia: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which included Karabakh. However, this fact did not suit the Armenians at all, who at that time made up the majority of the population: the first war began in Karabakh. The Armenians won a tactical victory, but suffered a strategic defeat: the Bolsheviks included Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan.

During the Soviet period, peace was maintained in the region; the issue of transferring Karabakh to Armenia was periodically raised, but did not find support from the country's leadership. Any manifestations of discontent were harshly suppressed. In 1987, the first clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis began on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to casualties. Deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) are asking to annex them to Armenia.

In 1991, the creation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) was proclaimed and a large-scale war with Azerbaijan began. The fighting took place until 1994; at the front, the sides used aviation, armored vehicles, and heavy artillery. On May 12, 1994, a ceasefire agreement came into force, and the Karabakh conflict entered the frozen stage.

The result of the war was the actual independence of the NKR, as well as the occupation of several regions of Azerbaijan adjacent to the border with Armenia. In fact, Azerbaijan suffered a crushing defeat in this war, did not achieve its goals and lost part of its ancestral territories. Similar situation did not suit Baku at all, which had been building its own domestic policy on the desire for revenge and the return of lost lands.

Current balance of power

In the last war, Armenia and NKR won, Azerbaijan lost territory and was forced to admit defeat. For many years, the Karabakh conflict remained in a frozen state, which was accompanied by periodic skirmishes on the front line.

However, during this period a lot changed economic situation warring countries, today Azerbaijan has a much more serious military potential. Over the years of high oil prices, Baku managed to modernize the army and equip it with the latest weapons. Russia has always been the main supplier of weapons to Azerbaijan (this caused serious irritation in Yerevan); modern weapons were also purchased from Turkey, Israel, Ukraine and even South Africa. Armenia's resources did not allow it to qualitatively strengthen the army with new weapons. In Armenia, and in Russia, many thought that this time the conflict would end the same way as in 1994 - that is, with flight and defeat of the enemy.

If in 2003 Azerbaijan spent $135 million on the armed forces, then in 2018 costs should exceed $1.7 billion. Baku's military spending peaked in 2013, when $3.7 billion was allocated for military needs. For comparison: the entire state budget of Armenia in 2018 amounted to $2.6 billion.

Today, the total strength of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces is 67 thousand people (57 thousand people are ground forces), another 300 thousand are in reserve. It should be noted that in recent years, the Azerbaijani army has been reformed along Western lines, moving to NATO standards.

The ground forces of Azerbaijan are assembled into five corps, which include 23 brigades. Today, the Azerbaijani army has more than 400 tanks (T-55, T-72 and T-90), with Russia supplying 100 of the latest T-90s from 2010 to 2014. The number of armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles and armored vehicles is 961 units. Most of them are products of the Soviet military-industrial complex (BMP-1, BMP-2, BTR-69, BTR-70 and MT-LB), but there are also newest cars Russian and foreign production (BMP-3, BTR-80A, armored vehicles made in Turkey, Israel and South Africa). Some of the Azerbaijani T-72s have been modernized by the Israelis.

Azerbaijan has almost 700 pieces of artillery, including both towed and self-propelled artillery, this number also includes rocket artillery. Most of them were obtained during the division of Soviet military property, but there are also newer models: 18 Msta-S self-propelled guns, 18 2S31 Vena self-propelled guns, 18 Smerch MLRS and 18 TOS-1A Solntsepek. Separately, it should be noted the Israeli Lynx MLRS (caliber 300, 166 and 122 mm), which are superior in their characteristics (primarily in accuracy) to their Russian counterparts. In addition, Israel supplied the Azerbaijani Armed Forces with a 155-mm SOLTAM Atmos self-propelled gun. Most of the towed artillery is represented by Soviet D-30 howitzers.

Anti-tank artillery mainly represented by the Soviet anti-tank missile system MT-12 "Rapier", also in service are Soviet-made ATGMs ("Malyutka", "Konkurs", "Fagot", "Metis") and foreign-made (Israel - Spike, Ukraine - "Skif") . In 2014, Russia supplied several Khrysantema self-propelled ATGMs.

Russia has supplied Azerbaijan with serious sapper equipment that can be used to overcome enemy fortified zones.

Air defense systems were also received from Russia: S-300PMU-2 “Favorite” (two divisions) and several Tor-M2E batteries. There are old Shilkas and about 150 Soviet Krug, Osa and Strela-10 complexes. There is also a division of the Buk-MB and Buk-M1-2 air defense systems, transferred by Russia, and a division of the Israeli-made Barak 8 air defense system.

There are Tochka-U operational-tactical systems, which were purchased from Ukraine.

Armenia has a much smaller military potential, which is due to its more modest share in the Soviet “legacy”. And Yerevan’s finances are much worse - there are no oil fields on its territory.

After the end of the war in 1994, large funds were allocated from the Armenian state budget for the creation of fortifications along the entire front line. The total number of Armenian ground forces today is 48 thousand people, another 210 thousand are in reserve. Together with the NKR, the country can field about 70 thousand soldiers, which is comparable to the Azerbaijani army, but the technical equipment of the Armenian armed forces is clearly inferior to the enemy.

The total number of Armenian tanks is just over a hundred units (T-54, T-55 and T-72), armored vehicles - 345, most of them were made in USSR factories. Armenia has practically no money to modernize its army. Russia gives it its old weapons and provides loans for the purchase of weapons (Russian, of course).

The Armenian air defense is armed with five S-300PS divisions, there is information that the Armenians support the equipment in good condition. There are also older examples of Soviet technology: S-200, S-125 and S-75, as well as Shilki. Their exact number is unknown.

The Armenian Air Force consists of 15 Su-25 attack aircraft, Mi-24 (11 pieces) and Mi-8 helicopters, as well as multi-purpose Mi-2.

It should be added that in Armenia (Gyumri) there is a Russian military base where the MiG-29 and the S-300V air defense system division are stationed. In the event of an attack on Armenia, according to CSTO agreement Russia must help its ally.

Caucasian Knot

Today, Azerbaijan's position looks much more preferable. The country managed to create modern and very strong armed forces, which was proven in April 2018. It is not entirely clear what will happen next: it is beneficial for Armenia to maintain the current situation; in fact, it controls about 20% of the territory of Azerbaijan. However, this is not very beneficial for Baku.

Attention should also be paid to the domestic political aspects of the April events. After the fall in oil prices, Azerbaijan is experiencing an economic crisis, and the best way to pacify the dissatisfied at such a time is to unleash a “small victorious war.” The economy in Armenia has traditionally been bad. So for the Armenian leadership, war is also a very suitable way to refocus the attention of the people.

In terms of numbers, the armed forces of both sides are approximately comparable, but in terms of their organization, the armies of Armenia and the NKR are decades behind modern armed forces. Events at the front clearly showed this. The opinion that the high Armenian fighting spirit and the difficulties of waging war in mountainous terrain would equalize everything turned out to be erroneous.

Israeli Lynx MLRS (caliber 300 mm and range 150 km) are superior in accuracy and range to everything that was made in the USSR and is now produced in Russia. In combination with Israeli drones, the Azerbaijani army has the opportunity to deliver powerful and deep strikes against enemy targets.

The Armenians, having launched their counter-offensive, were unable to dislodge the enemy from all their positions.

With a high degree of probability we can say that the war will not end. Azerbaijan demands the liberation of the areas surrounding Karabakh, but the Armenian leadership cannot agree to this. It would be political suicide for him. Azerbaijan feels like a winner and wants to continue fighting. Baku has shown that it has a formidable and combat-ready army that knows how to win.

The Armenians are angry and confused, they demand to recapture the lost territories from the enemy at any cost. In addition to the myth about the superiority of our own army, another myth was shattered: about Russia as a reliable ally. Over the past years, Azerbaijan has received the latest Russian weapons, and only old Soviet weapons have been supplied to Armenia. In addition, it turned out that Russia is not eager to fulfill its obligations under the CSTO.

For Moscow, the state of the frozen conflict in the NKR was an ideal situation that allowed it to exert its influence on both sides of the conflict. Of course, Yerevan was more dependent on Moscow. Armenia has practically found itself surrounded by unfriendly countries, and if opposition supporters come to power in Georgia this year, it may find itself in complete isolation.

There is another factor – Iran. IN last war he sided with the Armenians. But this time the situation may change. There is a large Azerbaijani diaspora living in Iran, whose opinion the country’s leadership cannot ignore.

Negotiations between the presidents of the countries with the mediation of the United States were recently held in Vienna. The ideal solution for Moscow would be to introduce its own peacekeepers into the conflict zone; this would further strengthen Russian influence in the region. Yerevan will agree to this, but what does Baku need to offer to support such a step?

The worst-case scenario for the Kremlin would be the outbreak of a full-scale war in the region. With Donbass and Syria on the back burner, Russia may simply not be able to sustain another armed conflict on its periphery.

Video about the Karabakh conflict

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below the article. We or our visitors will be happy to answer them

Alexander was detained at the request of Azerbaijan for an allegedly “illegal” (according to the Azerbaijani authorities) visit to Nagorno-Karabakh. Personally, I consider this detention a flagrant violation of international law - Azerbaijan could have blocked Alexander from entering the country, but not put him on the international wanted list for such a minor offense, and especially not brought criminal charges for his blog posts - this is clean water political persecution.

And in this post I will tell you how events around Nagorno-Karabakh developed in the late eighties and early nineties, we will look at photographs of that war and think about whether there could be some side “on the right” in the ethnic conflict.

First, a little history. Nagorno-Karabakh has been a disputed territory for a long time and has repeatedly changed hands over its centuries-old history. Azerbaijani and Armenian scientists are still arguing (and, apparently, will never come to an agreement) about who originally lived in Karabakh - either the ancestors of modern Armenians, or the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis.

By the 18th century, Nagorno-Karabakh had a predominantly Armenian population, and the territory of Karabakh itself was considered “theirs” by both Armenians (due to the fact that a predominantly Armenian population lives in this region) and Azerbaijanis (due to the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh has long been was part of the Azerbaijani territorial entities). This territorial dispute formed the main essence of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

At the beginning of the 20th century, military conflicts in Karabakh broke out twice - in 1905-1907 and in 1918-1920 - both conflicts were bloody and accompanied by the destruction of property, and at the end of the 20th century, the Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontation flared up with renewed vigor. In 1985, Perestroika began in the USSR, and many problems that had been frozen (and, in fact, not resolved) with the advent of Soviet power were “reactivated” in the country.

On the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, they remembered that local authorities in 1920 recognized Karabakh’s right to self-determination, and the Soviet government of Azerbaijan believed that Karabakh should go to Armenia - but the central government of the USSR intervened and “gave” Karabakh to Azerbaijan. During Soviet times, the issue of transferring Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia was raised from time to time by the Armenian leadership, but did not receive support from the center. In the 1960s, socio-economic tensions in the NKAO escalated several times into mass unrest.

In the second half of the 1980s, calls for the transfer of Karabakh to Armenia began to be increasingly heard in Armenia, and in February-March 1988, the idea of transferring Karabakh to Armenia was supported by the official newspaper “Soviet Karabakh”, which has more than 90,000 subscribers. Then there was a long period of late-Soviet confrontation, during which the deputies of Karabakh declared the NKR part of Armenia, and Azerbaijan resisted this in every possible way.

02. In the winter of 1988, Armenian pogroms took place in Sumgait and Kirovobad. The central authorities of the USSR decided to hide the true motives of the conflict - the participants in the pogroms were tried for simple “hooliganism”, without mentioning the motives of national enmity. Troops were sent into the cities to prevent further pogroms.

03. Soviet troops on the streets of Baku:

04. The conflict is growing, including at the everyday level, fueled by both Armenian and Azerbaijani media. At the end of the 1980s, the first refugees appeared - Armenians flee from Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijanis leave Karabakh, mutual hatred only grows.

05. Around the same time, the conflict around Nagorno-Karabakh begins to escalate into a full-fledged military clash. At first, small groups of soldiers from both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides took part in the fighting - often the soldiers did not have a uniform uniform or insignia, the troops looked more like some kind of partisan detachments.

06. At the beginning of January 1990, clashes became more widespread - the first mutual artillery shelling was noted on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. January 15 state of emergency was introduced in Karabakh and in the border regions of the Azerbaijan SSR, in the Goris region of the Armenian SSR, as well as in the border zone along the state border of the USSR on the territory of the Azerbaijan SSR.

Children near a gun at one of the artillery positions:

07. Azerbaijani troops, formation for inspection by officers. It can be seen that the soldiers are dressed differently - some in urban camouflage, some in the landing "mabuta" from the times of the Afghan war, and some simply in some kind of work jackets. Both sides of the conflict are fought almost exclusively by volunteers.

08. Registration of Azerbaijani volunteers in the troops:

09. What is most terrible is that the military conflict occurs in close proximity to local cities and villages; almost all segments of the population are drawn into the war - from young children to the very old.

10. Both sides of the conflict perceive the war as “sacred” for themselves; farewell ceremonies for the “heroes fallen during the conflict” attract thousands of people in Baku:

11. In 1991, hostilities intensified - from the end of April to the beginning of June 1991 in Karabakh and adjacent regions of Azerbaijan by forces of units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and Soviet army The so-called “Operation Ring” was carried out, during which regular Armenian-Azerbaijani armed clashes took place.

12. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, both Armenia and Azerbaijan were left with parts of former Soviet military property. The 4th combined arms army (four motorized rifle divisions), three air defense brigades, a special forces brigade, four air force bases and part of the Caspian naval flotilla, as well as many ammunition depots, passed to Azerbaijan.

Armenia found itself in a worse situation - in 1992, the weapons and military equipment of two of the three divisions (15th and 164th) of the 7th Combined Arms Army of the former USSR were transferred under the control of Yerevan. Of course, all this was used in the blazing Karabakh conflict.

13. Active hostilities were carried out in 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994, with “variable success” between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis.

Azerbaijani soldiers at a school that became a military base in the front line:

14. Barracks in a former classroom:

15. Armenian troops in one of the villages:

16. Ruins of a house in the city of Shusha.

17. Civilians killed during the conflict...

18. People are fleeing the war:

19. Life in the front line.

20. Refugee camp in the city of Imishli.

An agreement to end the “hot phase” of the war was reached on May 12, 1994, after which the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh entered a smoldering phase, with fighting by small groups. The military conflict did not bring complete success none of the warring parties - Nagony Karabakh separated from Azerbaijan, but did not become part. Armenia. During the war, about 20,000 people died, the war destroyed several cities in Nagorno-Karabakh and many monuments of Armenian architecture.

In my opinion, there are no “rights” in the conflict in Karabakh - both sides are to blame to one degree or another. No “piece of land” in the 21st century is worth killed people and mutilated lives - you need to be able to negotiate and make concessions to each other and open borders, and not build new barriers.

Who do you think is right in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh? Or are there no right people, everyone is guilty?

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