Karabakh conflict between the Armenian and Azerbaijani population of the autonomous republic of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan - the first large-scale ethnic clash on the territory of the Soviet Union.

He demonstrated the weakening of the central government and became a harbinger of the upheavals that led to. The conflict has not ended, it continues now, 25 years later.

Calm periods alternate with local hostilities. The intensification of fighting on April 2 - 5, 2016 led to the death of more than 70 people on both sides. There is no one-size-fits-all solution and is not expected in the foreseeable future.

Neighbours

The conflict did not start suddenly. In the confrontation between the Ottoman and Russian empires, Russia traditionally supported the Armenians, and Turkey supported the Azerbaijanis. Geographically, Karabakh found itself between opponents - on the Azerbaijani side of the mountain range, but populated mainly by Armenians in the mountainous part, and the Azerbaijani population on the plain with the center in the city of Shushi.

Strangely, not a single open clash was recorded in the entire 19th century. Only in the 20th century, with the weakening of the central government, the contradictions began to move into a hot phase. During the revolution of 1905, the first inter-ethnic clashes took place, which lasted until 1907.

During the Russian Civil War of 1918-1920, the conflict again entered a hot phase, sometimes called the Armenian-Azerbaijani war. At the end of the Civil War, during the formation of the union republics, a decision was made to form the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region as part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The reasons for this decision are still unclear.

According to some reports, Stalin wanted to improve relations with Turkey in this way. Moreover, in the 1930s, in the course of administrative changes, several regions of Nagorno-Karabakh, bordering Armenia, were transferred to Azerbaijan. Now the Autonomous Region did not have a common border with Armenia. The conflict has entered a smoldering phase.

In the 40s - 70s, the leadership of Azerbaijan pursued a policy of settling the NKAO with Azerbaijanis, which did not contribute to good relations between neighbors.

War

In 1987, Moscow's control over the union republics weakened and the frozen conflict began to flare up again. Numerous rallies took place on both sides. In 1988, Armenian pogroms swept through Azerbaijan, Azerbaijanis massively left Armenia. Azerbaijan blocked the connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, in response, Armenia announced a blockade of the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan.

In the ensuing chaos, weapons from the army garrisons and from military depots began to arrive to the participants in the confrontation. In 1990, the real war began. With the collapse of the USSR, the warring parties received full access to the weapons of the Soviet army in the Transcaucasus. Armored vehicles, artillery and aviation appeared on the fronts. Russian military personnel in the region, abandoned by their command, often fought on both sides of the front, especially in aviation.

The turning point in the course of the war occurred in May 1992, when the Lachin region of Azerbaijan, bordering Armenia, was captured by the Armenians. Now Nagorno-Karabakh was connected to Armenia by a transport corridor through which military equipment and volunteers began to flow. In 1993 and the first half of 1994, the advantage of the Armenian formations became obvious.

By systematically expanding the Lachin corridor, the Armenians captured the regions of Azerbaijan lying between Karabakh and Armenia. The Azerbaijani population was expelled from them. Active actions ended in May 1994 with the signing of a ceasefire agreement. The Karabakh conflict was suspended, but not over.

Results

• Up to 7 thousand dead in Karabakh (no exact figures)
• 11,557 dead Azerbaijani military
• Over half a million refugees
• Armenians control 13.4% of the territory of Azerbaijan, which was not part of the NKAO before the war
• Over the past 24 years, several attempts have been made to bring the positions of the parties closer together with the participation of Russia, the United States and Turkey. None of them were successful
• The common cultural traditions that have developed over the centuries of living together have been completely destroyed. Both sides have developed their own, diametrically opposed versions of history, theories and myths.

The Karabakh conflict is an ethno-political conflict in Transcaucasia between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. The intercommunal conflict, which has long historical and cultural roots, acquired a new urgency during the years of perestroika (1987-1988), against the backdrop of a sharp rise in national movements in Armenia and Azerbaijan. By November-December 1988, as noted by A.N. Yamskov, most of the inhabitants of both republics were involved in this conflict, and it actually outgrew the scope of the local problem of Nagorno-Karabakh, turning into an “open interethnic confrontation”, which was only temporarily suspended by the Spitak earthquake . The unpreparedness of the Soviet leadership for adequate political action in an environment of aggravated interethnic strife, the inconsistency of the measures taken, the declaration by the central authorities of an equal degree of guilt of Armenia and Azerbaijan in creating a crisis situation led to the emergence and strengthening of the radical anti-communist opposition in both republics.

In 1991-1994, this confrontation led to large-scale military actions for control over Nagorno-Karabakh and some adjacent territories. In terms of the level of military confrontation, it was surpassed only by the Chechen conflict, but, as Svante Cornell noted, “of all the Caucasian conflicts, the Karabakh conflict has the greatest strategic and regional significance. This conflict is the only one on the territory of the former Soviet Union in which two independent states are directly involved. Moreover, in the late 1990s, the Karabakh conflict contributed to the formation of opposing groupings of states in the Caucasus and around it.”

On May 5, 1994, the Bishkek Protocol on a truce and ceasefire was signed between Armenia and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on the one hand and Azerbaijan on the other.

As G. V. Starovoitova wrote, “from the point of view of international law, this conflict is an example of contradictions between two fundamental principles: on the one hand, the right of the people to self-determination, and on the other hand, the principle of territorial integrity, according to which only a peaceful change of borders along agreement."

Through a referendum (December 10, 1991), Nagorno-Karabakh tried to gain the right to full independence. The attempt failed, and this region became a hostage to the antagonistic claims of Armenia and Azerbaijan's attempts to retain power.
The result of full-scale military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991 and 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 more than 50 thousand were wounded and disabled.
In 1994, with the help of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, as well as the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly in Bishkek, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan signed a protocol, on the basis of which an agreement was reached on a ceasefire. Although, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict have been ongoing since 1991. The first meeting of representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan took place back in 1993, and since 1999 regular meetings have been held between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Despite this, the "degree" of the war remains, because Azerbaijan is trying with all its might to maintain its former territorial integrity, Armenia insists that it protects the interests of Nagorno-Karabakh, which, as an unrecognized republic, is not a participant in the negotiations at all.

This three-stage conflict has almost a century of history and, for now, it is too early to talk about the end of the third stage, and, consequently, the conflict itself. Resolutions were adopted by the UN Security Council from April to November 1993. These resolutions called on the parties to disarmament and the peaceful settlement of disputed issues. The result of the war of 1987-1991. is the victory of the Armenian side, the actual independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the “freezing” of the conflict. The cruelty of both sides in relation to the population of another nationality, the grossest violations of human rights during operations, torture, arbitrary arrests, detentions. After the defeat of the Azerbaijani side, armenophobia arose, accompanied by the destruction of monuments of Armenian culture, cemeteries. The losses of both sides, according to various sources, number up to 50,000 people. None of the four resolutions of the UN Security Council has been fully implemented, despite their imperative nature.

This ethno-territorial conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh has a very interesting composition sides. In essence, this is a clash of two political camps - Armenian and Azerbaijani. In fact, it was a clash of three political parties: Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (the interests of Yerevan and Stepanakert had significant differences).

The positions of the parties remain contradictory until now: the NKR wants to remain a sovereign state, Azerbaijan insists on the return of the territory, referring to the observance of the principle of the territorial integrity of the state. Armenia seeks to keep Karabakh under its auspices.

Russia is trying to become a peacemaker in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. But the Kremlin's interests do not allow it to become an independent and impartial arbitrator in the Middle East arena. On November 2, 2008, the three countries held talks in Moscow on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Russia hopes that the Armenian-Azerbaijani talks will ensure stability in the Caucasus.

Russia as a member of the OSCE Minsk Group only one of its functions - a forum for negotiations9), proposed to the negotiators of Armenia and Azerbaijan the draft basic principles for the settlement of the conflict - the Madrid principles.

By the way, according to the 2010 census, 1182 thousand Armenians live in Russia, and this is the 6th largest nation in Russia. The All-Russian public organization uniting the Armenians of Russia is the Union of Armenians of Russia. If we talk about the goals pursued by him, then this is the multifaceted development and support of Armenians, both in Russia and in Armenia and the NKR.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Transcaucasia, which is legally the territory of Azerbaijan. At the time of the collapse of the USSR, a military clash arose here, since the vast majority of the inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh have Armenian roots. The essence of the conflict is that Azerbaijan makes quite reasonable demands on this territory, but the inhabitants of the region gravitate towards Armenia more. On May 12, 1994, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh ratified a protocol that established a truce, which resulted in an unconditional ceasefire in the conflict zone.

Excursion into history

Armenian historical sources claim that Artsakh (the ancient Armenian name) was first mentioned in the 8th century BC. According to these sources, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Armenia in the early Middle Ages. As a result of the aggressive wars of Turkey and Iran in this era, a significant part of Armenia came under the control of these countries. The Armenian principalities, or melikdoms, at that time located on the territory of modern Karabakh, retained a semi-independent status.

Azerbaijan has its own point of view on this issue. According to local researchers, Karabakh is one of the most ancient historical regions of their country. The word "Karabakh" in Azerbaijani is translated as follows: "gara" means black, and "bag" means garden. Already in the 16th century, together with other provinces, Karabakh was part of the Safavid state, and after that it became an independent khanate.

Nagorno-Karabakh during the Russian Empire

In 1805, the Karabakh khanate was subordinated to the Russian Empire, and in 1813, under the Gulistan peace treaty, Nagorno-Karabakh also became part of Russia. Then, according to the Turkmenchay Treaty, as well as an agreement concluded in the city of Edirne, Armenians were resettled from Turkey and Iran and settled in the territories of Northern Azerbaijan, including Karabakh. Thus, the population of these lands is predominantly of Armenian origin.

As part of the USSR

In 1918, the newly created Azerbaijan Democratic Republic gained control over Karabakh. Almost simultaneously, the Armenian Republic makes claims to this area, but the ADR does not recognize these claims. In 1921, the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with the rights of broad autonomy was included in the Azerbaijan SSR. Two years later, Karabakh receives the status of an autonomous region (NKAR).

In 1988, the Council of Deputies of the NKAO petitioned the authorities of the AzSSR and the ArmSSR of the republics and proposed to transfer the disputed territory to Armenia. This petition was not granted, as a result of which a wave of protest swept through the cities of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. Solidarity demonstrations were also held in Yerevan.

Declaration of Independence

In the early autumn of 1991, when the Soviet Union had already begun to fall apart, the NKAO adopted a Declaration proclaiming the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Moreover, in addition to the NKAO, it included part of the territories of the former AzSSR. According to the results of the referendum held on December 10 of the same year in Nagorno-Karabakh, more than 99% of the population of the region voted for complete independence from Azerbaijan.

It is quite obvious that the referendum was not recognized by the Azerbaijani authorities, and the act of proclamation itself was designated as illegal. Moreover, Baku decided to abolish the autonomy of Karabakh, which it enjoyed in Soviet times. However, the destructive process has already been launched.

Karabakh conflict

For the independence of the self-proclaimed republic, Armenian detachments stood up, which Azerbaijan tried to resist. Nagorno-Karabakh received support from official Yerevan, as well as from the national diaspora in other countries, so the militia managed to defend the region. However, the Azerbaijani authorities still managed to establish control over several regions, which were initially proclaimed part of the NKR.

Each of the opposing sides cites its own statistics of losses in the Karabakh conflict. Comparing these data, we can conclude that 15-25 thousand people died in the three years of sorting out the relationship. At least 25,000 were wounded, and more than 100,000 civilians were forced to leave their places of residence.

Peace settlement

Negotiations, during which the parties tried to resolve the conflict peacefully, began almost immediately after an independent NKR was proclaimed. For example, on September 23, 1991, a meeting was held, which was attended by the presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia, as well as Russia and Kazakhstan. In the spring of 1992, the OSCE established a group for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

Despite all the attempts of the international community to stop the bloodshed, it was not until the spring of 1994 that a ceasefire was achieved. On May 5, the Bishkek Protocol was signed in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, after which the participants ceased fire a week later.

The parties to the conflict failed to agree on the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan demands respect for its sovereignty and insists on maintaining its territorial integrity. The interests of the self-proclaimed republic are protected by Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh is in favor of a peaceful resolution of controversial issues, while the authorities of the republic emphasize that the NKR is able to stand up for its independence.

Fb.ru

Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Reference

(updated: 11:02 05/05/2009)

15 years ago (1994) Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia signed the Bishkek Protocol on ceasefire on May 12, 1994 in the Karabakh conflict zone.

15 years ago (1994) Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia signed the Bishkek Protocol on ceasefire on May 12, 1994 in the Karabakh conflict zone.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Transcaucasia, de jure part of Azerbaijan. The population is 138 thousand people, the vast majority are Armenians. The capital is the city of Stepanakert. The population is about 50 thousand people.

According to Armenian open sources, Nagorno-Karabakh (the ancient Armenian name is Artsakh) was first mentioned in the inscription of Sardur II, king of Urartu (763-734 BC). In the early Middle Ages, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Armenia, according to Armenian sources. After most of this country was captured by Turkey and Iran in the Middle Ages, the Armenian principalities (melikdoms) of Nagorno-Karabakh retained a semi-independent status.

According to Azerbaijani sources, Karabakh is one of the most ancient historical regions of Azerbaijan. According to the official version, the appearance of the term "Karabakh" dates back to the 7th century and is interpreted as a combination of the Azerbaijani words "gara" (black) and "bagh" (garden). Among other provinces of Karabakh (Ganja in Azerbaijani terminology) in the 16th century. was part of the Safavid state, later became an independent Karabakh khanate.

According to the Kurekchay Treaty of 1805, the Karabakh Khanate, as a Muslim-Azerbaijani land, was subordinated to Russia. AT 1813 Under the Gulistan Peace Treaty, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Russia. In the first third of the 19th century, according to the Treaty of Turkmenchay and the Treaty of Edirne, the artificial placement of Armenians resettled from Iran and Turkey began in Northern Azerbaijan, including in Karabakh.

On May 28, 1918, the independent state of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) was created in Northern Azerbaijan, which retained its political power over Karabakh. At the same time, the declared Armenian (Ararat) Republic put forward its claims to Karabakh, which were not recognized by the government of the ADR. In January 1919, the ADR government created the Karabakh province, which included the Shusha, Javanshir, Jabrayil and Zangezur districts.

AT July 1921 By decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Nagorno-Karabakh was included in the Azerbaijan SSR on the basis of broad autonomy. In 1923, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region was formed on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

February 20, 1988 Extraordinary session of the Regional Council of Deputies of the NKAR adopted a decision "On the petition to the Supreme Soviets of the AzSSR and the ArmSSR on the transfer of the NKAO from the AzSSR to the ArmSSR." The refusal of the allied and Azerbaijani authorities caused demonstrations of protest by Armenians not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in Yerevan.

On September 2, 1991, a joint session of the Nagorno-Karabakh regional and Shahumyan regional councils was held in Stepanakert. The session adopted a Declaration on the proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, the Shahumyan region and part of the Khanlar region of the former Azerbaijan SSR.

December 10, 1991, a few days before the official collapse of the Soviet Union, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which the vast majority of the population - 99.89% - spoke in favor of complete independence from Azerbaijan.

During the conflict, regular Armenian units completely or partially captured seven regions that Azerbaijan considered its own. As a result, Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the same time Armenian side believes that part of Karabakh remains under the control of Azerbaijan - the villages of Mardakert and Martuni regions, the entire Shaumyan region and the Getashen sub-region, as well as Nakhichevan.

In the description of the conflict, the parties give their own figures on losses, which differ from those of the opposite side. According to consolidated data, the losses of both sides during the Karabakh conflict amounted to 15 to 25 thousand people killed, more than 25 thousand wounded, hundreds of thousands of civilians left their places of residence.

May 5, 1994 Through the mediation of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia signed a protocol that went down in the history of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict as Bishkek, on the basis of which an agreement on a ceasefire was reached on May 12.

On May 12 of the same year, a meeting was held in Moscow between the Minister of Defense of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan (now the President of Armenia), the Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan Mammadraffi Mammadov and the commander of the NKR Defense Army Samvel Babayan, at which the commitment of the parties to the previously reached ceasefire agreement was confirmed.

The negotiation process to resolve the conflict began in 1991. September 23, 1991 A meeting of the Presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia took place in Zheleznovodsk. In March 1992, the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was established to resolve the Karabakh conflict, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. In mid-September 1993, the first meeting of representatives of Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh took place in Moscow. At about the same time, a private meeting was held in Moscow between Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and then-Prime Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh Robert Kocharyan. Since 1999, regular meetings have been held between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Azerbaijan insists on maintaining its territorial integrity, Armenia defends the interests of the unrecognized republic, since the unrecognized NKR is not a party to the negotiations.

ria.ru

Karabakh conflict

The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, located in the Armenian Highlands, has an area of ​​4.5 thousand square meters. kilometers.

The Karabakh conflict, which has become the cause of hatred and mutual enmity between the once friendly peoples, is rooted in the twenties of the last century. It was at this time that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, now called Artsakh, turned into a bone of contention between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Even before the October Revolution, these two republics, drawn into the Karabakh conflict, together with neighboring Georgia, took part in territorial disputes. And in the spring of 1920, the current Azerbaijanis, whom the Russians called "Caucasian Tatars", with the support of the Turkish interventionists, massacred the Armenians, who at that time made up 94% of the entire population of Artsakh. The main blow fell on the administrative center - the city of Shushi, where more than 25 thousand people were slaughtered. The Armenian part of the city was wiped off the face of the earth.

But the Azerbaijanis miscalculated: having killed the Armenians, having destroyed Shushi, they, although they became masters in the region, received a completely destroyed economy, which had to be restored for more than a dozen years.

The Bolsheviks, not wanting to flare up full-scale hostilities, recognize Artsakh as one of the parts of Armenia, along with two regions - Zangezur and Nakhichevan.

However, Joseph Stalin, who in those years served as People's Commissar for National Affairs, under pressure from Baku and the then leader of the Turks, Ataturk, forcibly changes the status of the republic and transfers it to Azerbaijan.

This decision causes a storm of indignation and indignation among the Armenian population. In fact, it was it that provoked the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Almost a hundred years have passed since then. In subsequent years, Artsakh, being part of Azerbaijan, secretly continued to fight for its independence. Letters were sent to Moscow in which it was said that official Baku was trying to expel all Armenians from this mountainous republic, however, the answer to all these complaints and requests for reunification with Armenia was the same: “socialist internationalism”.

The Karabakh conflict, the causes of which lie in the violation of the people's right to self-determination, arose against the backdrop of a very alarming situation. In relation to the Armenians in 1988, an open policy of eviction began. The situation was heating up.

In the meantime, official Baku developed its own plan, according to which the Karabakh conflict was to be “resolved”: in the city of Sumgayit, all the living Armenians were massacred in one night.

At the same time, multi-million rallies began in Yerevan, the main demand of which was to consider the possibility of Karabakh secession from Azerbaijan, the response to which were actions in Kirovabad.

It was at this time that the first refugees appeared in the USSR, who left their homes in a panic.

Thousands of people, mostly old people, came to Armenia, where camps were set up for them all over the territory.

The Karabakh conflict gradually developed into a real war. Volunteer detachments were created in Armenia, and regular troops were sent from Azerbaijan to Karabakh. Famine began in the republic.

In 1992, the Armenians captured Lachin, the corridor between Armenia and Artsakh, ending the blockade of the republic. At the same time, significant territories were seized in Azerbaijan itself.

The unrecognized republic of Artsakh, after the collapse of the USSR, held a referendum at which it was decided to declare its independence.

In 1994, a tripartite agreement on the cessation of hostilities was signed in Bishkek with the participation of Russia.

The Karabakh conflict is one of the most tragic pages of reality to this day. That is why both Russia and the entire world community are trying to resolve it peacefully.

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History of the disaster. How the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began | History | Society

In a series of interethnic conflicts that engulfed the Soviet Union in the last years of its existence, Nagorno-Karabakh became the first. The restructuring policy launched Mikhail Gorbachev, was tested for strength by the events in Karabakh. The audit showed the complete failure of the new Soviet leadership.

A region with a complex history

Nagorno-Karabakh, a small piece of land in the Transcaucasus, has an ancient and difficult fate, where the life paths of neighbors - Armenians and Azerbaijanis are intertwined.

The geographical region of Karabakh is divided into flat and mountainous parts. In Plain Karabakh, the Azerbaijani population historically prevailed, in Nagorno - Armenian.

Wars, peace, wars again - and so the peoples lived side by side, now at enmity, now reconciling. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, Karabakh became the scene of a fierce Armenian-Azerbaijani war of 1918-1920. The confrontation, in which nationalists played the main role on both sides, came to naught only after the establishment of Soviet power in the Transcaucasus.

In the summer of 1921, after a heated discussion, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) decided to leave Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the Azerbaijan SSR and grant it wide regional autonomy.

The Autonomous Oblast of Nagorno-Karabakh, which became the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in 1937, preferred to consider itself part of the Soviet Union rather than part of the Azerbaijan SSR.

"Defrosting" mutual grievances

For many years, these subtleties were ignored in Moscow. Attempts in the 1960s to raise the topic of the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian SSR were severely suppressed - then the central leadership considered that such nationalist encroachments should be nipped in the bud.

But the Armenian population of the NKAO still had a reason for concern. If in 1923 Armenians made up over 90 percent of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, by the mid-1980s this percentage had dropped to 76. This was no accident - the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR deliberately staked on changing the ethnic component of the region.

While the situation in the country as a whole remained stable, everything was calm in Nagorno-Karabakh too. Minor skirmishes on national grounds were not taken seriously.

Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, among other things, "unfrozen" the discussion of previously taboo topics. For the nationalists, whose existence until now was possible only in the deep underground, this was a real gift of fate.

It was in Chardakhlu

Big things always start small. The Armenian village of Chardakhly existed in the Shamkhor region of Azerbaijan. During the years of the Great Patriotic War 1250 people left the village for the front. Of these, half were awarded orders and medals, two became marshals, twelve - generals, seven - Heroes of the Soviet Union.

In 1987 secretary of the district committee of the Asadov party decided to replace director of the local state farm Yegiyan on the leader-Azerbaijani.

The villagers were outraged not even by the dismissal of Yegiyan, who was accused of abuse, but by the way it was done. Asadov acted rudely, impudently, suggesting that the former director "leave for Yerevan." In addition, the new director, according to the locals, was "a barbeque with a primary education."

The inhabitants of Chardakhlu were not afraid of the Nazis, they were not afraid of the head of the district committee either. They simply refused to recognize the new appointee, and Asadov began to threaten the villagers.

From a letter from Chardakhly residents to the USSR Prosecutor General: “Every visit of Asadov to the village is accompanied by a detachment of police and a fire engine. There was no exception and the first of December. Arriving with a police detachment late in the evening, he forcibly gathered the communists in order to hold the party meeting he needed. When he did not succeed, they began to beat the people, arrested and took 15 people on a pre-arrived bus. Among those beaten and arrested were participants and invalids of the Great Patriotic War ( Vartanian V., Martirosyan X.,Gabrielian A. etc.), milkmaids, advanced link ( Minasyan G.) and even former deputy of the Supreme Council of Az. SSR of many convocations Movsesyan M.

Not satisfied with his atrocity, the misanthropic Asadov again on December 2, with an even larger police detachment, organized another pogrom in his homeland Marshal Baghramyan on his 90th birthday. This time 30 people were beaten and arrested. Such sadism and lawlessness would be the envy of any racist from the colonial countries.”

“We want to go to Armenia!”

An article about the events in Chardakhly was published in the newspaper Selskaya Zhizn. If the center did not attach much importance to what was happening, then in Nagorno-Karabakh a wave of indignation arose among the Armenian population. How so? Why does the unbelted functionary go unpunished? What will happen next?

“The same thing will happen to us if we don't join Armenia,” - who and when said it first is not so important. The main thing is that already at the beginning of 1988, the official press organ of the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and the Council of People's Deputies of the NKAO "Soviet Karabakh" began to print materials that supported this idea.

Delegations of the Armenian intelligentsia went to Moscow one after another. Meeting with representatives of the Central Committee of the CPSU, they assured that in the 1920s Nagorno-Karabakh was assigned to Azerbaijan by mistake, and now is the time to correct it. In Moscow, in the light of the policy of perestroika, the delegates were received, promising to study the issue. In Nagorno-Karabakh, this was perceived as the readiness of the center to support the transfer of the region to the Azerbaijan SSR.

The situation began to heat up. Slogans, especially from the lips of young people, sounded more and more radical. People far from politics began to fear for their safety. They began to look at neighbors of a different nationality with suspicion.

The leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR held a meeting of party and economic activists in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, at which they branded "separatists" and "nationalists". The stigma was, in general, correct, but, on the other hand, did not give answers to the question of how to live on. Among the party activists of Nagorno-Karabakh, the majority supported calls for the transfer of the region to Armenia.

Politburo for all good things

The situation began to get out of control of the authorities. Since mid-February 1988, a rally was held almost non-stop in the central square of Stepanakert, the participants of which demanded the transfer of the NKAR to Armenia. Actions in support of this demand began in Yerevan as well.

On February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of people's deputies of the NKAO addressed the Supreme Soviets of the Armenian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR and the USSR with a request to consider and positively resolve the issue of transferring the NKAR from Azerbaijan to Armenia: The Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR to show a deep understanding of the aspirations of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and resolve the issue of transferring the NKAO from the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR, at the same time petition the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for a positive decision on the issue of transferring the NKAR from the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR. ,

Every action creates a reaction. Mass actions began to take place in Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan demanding to stop the attacks of Armenian extremists and keep Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the republic.

On February 21, the situation was considered at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. What Moscow decides was closely monitored by both sides of the conflict.

“Consistently guided by the Leninist principles of national policy, the Central Committee of the CPSU appealed to the patriotic and internationalist feelings of the Armenian and Azerbaijani population with an appeal not to succumb to the provocations of nationalist elements, to strengthen in every possible way the great heritage of socialism - the fraternal friendship of the Soviet peoples,” the text published after the discussion said. .

Probably, this was the essence of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy - general correct phrases about everything good and against everything bad. But persuasion didn't help. While the creative intelligentsia spoke at rallies and in the press, the local radicals more and more often controlled the process.

First blood and pogrom in Sumgayit

The Shusha region of Nagorno-Karabakh was the only one in which the Azerbaijani population predominated. The situation here was fueled by rumors that in Yerevan and Stepanakert "Azerbaijani women and children are being brutally murdered." There were no real grounds for these rumors, but they were enough for an armed crowd of Azerbaijanis to start a "campaign to Stepanakert" on February 22 to "put things in order."

Near the village of Askeran, the distraught avengers were met by police cordons. It was not possible to reason with the crowd, shots were fired. Two people were killed, and, ironically, one of the first victims of the conflict was an Azerbaijani who was killed by an Azerbaijani policeman.

The real explosion occurred where they were not expected - in Sumgayit, a satellite city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. At that time, people began to appear there, calling themselves "refugees from Karabakh" and talking about the horrors committed by the Armenians. In fact, there was not a word of truth in the stories of the "refugees", but they heated up the situation.

Sumgayit, founded in 1949, was a multinational city - Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians lived and worked here for decades ... Nobody was ready for what happened in the last days of February 1988.

It is believed that the last straw was a TV report about a skirmish near Askeran, where two Azerbaijanis were killed. A rally in Sumgayit in support of the preservation of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan turned into an action at which the slogans “Death to the Armenians!” began to sound.

Local authorities and law enforcement agencies could not stop what was happening. Pogroms began in the city, which lasted for two days.

According to official figures, 26 Armenians died in Sumgayit, hundreds were injured. It was possible to stop the madness only after the introduction of troops. But even here everything turned out to be not so simple - at first the military was ordered to exclude the use of weapons. Only after the number of wounded soldiers and officers exceeded a hundred, patience snapped. Six Azerbaijanis were added to the dead Armenians, after which the riots ceased.

Exodus

The blood of Sumgayit has made ending the conflict in Karabakh an extremely difficult task. For Armenians, this pogrom became a reminder of the massacres in the Ottoman Empire that took place at the beginning of the 20th century. In Stepanakert they repeated: “Look what they are doing? Can we stay in Azerbaijan after that?”

Despite the fact that Moscow began to use tough measures, there was no logic in them. It happened that two members of the Politburo, coming to Yerevan and Baku, made mutually exclusive promises. The authority of the central government fell catastrophically.

After Sumgayit, the exodus of Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Armenians from Azerbaijan began. Frightened people, leaving everything acquired, fled from their neighbors, who suddenly became enemies.

It would be unfair to talk only about the scum. Not all of them were knocked down - during the pogroms in Sumgayit, the Azerbaijanis, often risking their own lives, hid the Armenians. In Stepanakert, where the "avengers" started hunting the Azerbaijanis, they were rescued by the Armenians.

But these worthy people could not stop the growing conflict. Here and there, new clashes broke out, which did not have time to stop the internal troops brought into the region.

The general crisis that began in the USSR increasingly diverted the attention of politicians from the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh. Neither side was ready to make concessions. By the beginning of 1990, illegal armed formations on both sides launched hostilities, the number of dead and wounded was already in the tens and hundreds.

Education in hate

Immediately after the August putsch of 1991, when the central government practically ceased to exist, independence was proclaimed not only by Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Since September 1991, what is happening in the region has become a war in the full sense of the word. And when, at the end of the year, units of the internal troops of the already defunct USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs were withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh, no one else could prevent the massacre.

The Karabakh war, which lasted until May 1994, ended with the signing of an armistice agreement. The total losses of the parties killed by independent experts are estimated at 25-30 thousand people.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has existed as an unrecognized state for more than a quarter of a century. The Azerbaijani authorities still declare their intention to regain control over the lost territories. Fighting of varying intensity on the contact line breaks out regularly.

On both sides, people will be blinded by hatred. Even a neutral comment about a neighboring country is seen as a national betrayal. From an early age, children are instilled with the idea of ​​who is the main enemy that must be destroyed.

“From where and for what, neighbor,
So many troubles have fallen on us?

Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan in 1909 he wrote the poem "A drop of honey". In Soviet times, it was well known to schoolchildren in the translation of Samuil Marshak. Tumanyan, who died in 1923, could not have known what would happen in Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of the 20th century. But this wise man, who knew history well, in one poem showed how sometimes monstrous fratricidal conflicts arise from mere trifles. Do not be too lazy to find and read it in full, and we will give only its ending:

... And the fire of war blazed,
And two countries are ruined
And there is no one to mow the field,
And there is no one to carry the dead.
And only death, ringing scythe,
Wandering through the desert...
Leaning at the gravestones
Alive to Alive says:
- Where and for what, neighbor,
So many troubles have fallen on us?
Here the story ends.
And if any of you
Ask the narrator a question
Who is more guilty here - a cat or a dog,
And is it really so much evil
Crazy fly brought -
The people will answer for us:
There will be flies - there would be honey! ..

P.S. The Armenian village of Chardakhlu, the birthplace of the heroes, ceased to exist at the end of 1988. More than 300 families inhabiting it moved to Armenia, where they settled in the village of Zorakan. Previously, this village was Azerbaijani, but with the outbreak of the conflict, its inhabitants became refugees, just like the inhabitants of Chardakhlu.

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The Karabakh conflict in brief: the essence of the war and news from the front

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

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

After several days of heavy fighting across the front line, military representatives from both sides met to discuss terms for a ceasefire. It was reached on April 5, although, after this date, the truce was repeatedly violated by both sides. On the whole, however, the situation at the front began to calm down. The Azerbaijani armed forces have begun to strengthen the positions conquered from the enemy.

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

To understand what is happening in this region today, you should make a short digression into history. This is the only way to understand the essence of this war.

Nagorno-Karabakh: prehistory of the conflict

The Karabakh conflict has very old historical and ethno-cultural roots; the situation in this region has escalated 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 inter-ethnic 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 absolutely did not suit the Armenians, 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 in 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 severely suppressed. In 1987, the first clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis began on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to human casualties. The deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) are asking to be annexed 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 parties used aviation, armored vehicles, and heavy artillery. On May 12, 1994, the ceasefire agreement comes into force, and the Karabakh conflict passes into the frozen stage.

The result of the war was the actual obtaining of independence by the NKR, as well as the occupation of several regions of Azerbaijan adjacent to the border with Armenia. In fact, in this war, Azerbaijan suffered a crushing defeat, did not achieve its goals and lost part of its ancestral territories. This situation absolutely did not suit Baku, which for many years built its internal policy on the desire for revenge and the return of lost lands.

Current balance of power

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

However, during this period, the economic situation of the opposing countries changed greatly, today Azerbaijan has a much more serious military potential. Over the years high prices on oil, Baku managed to modernize the army, equip it with the latest weapons. Russia has always been the main supplier of weapons to Azerbaijan (this caused serious irritation in Yerevan), and modern weapons were also purchased from Turkey, Israel, Ukraine and even South Africa. The resources of Armenia 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 the flight and defeat of the enemy.

If in 2003 Azerbaijan spent $135 million on the armed forces, then in 2018 the costs should exceed $1.7 billion. Baku's military spending peaked in 2013, when $3.7 billion was spent on 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 according to the Western model, switching 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), and from 2010 to 2014 Russia delivered 100 of the latest T-90s. The number of armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and armored vehicles and armored vehicles - 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 the latest vehicles of Russian and foreign production (BMP-3, BTR-80A, armored vehicles manufactured Turkey, Israel and South Africa). Some of the Azerbaijani T-72s have been modernized by the Israelis.

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

Anti-tank artillery is mainly represented by the Soviet anti-tank guns MT-12 "Rapier", also in service are Soviet-made ATGMs ("Malyutka", "Competition", "Fagot", "Metis") and foreign production (Israel - Spike, Ukraine - "Skif "). In 2014, Russia delivered several Khrizantema self-propelled ATGMs.

Russia has delivered serious sapper equipment to Azerbaijan, which can be used to overcome the enemy's fortified zones.

Also, air defense systems were received from Russia: S-300PMU-2 Favorit (two divisions) and several Tor-M2E batteries. There are old "Shilki" and about 150 Soviet complexes "Circle", "Osa" and "Strela-10". 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 operational-tactical complexes "Tochka-U", which were purchased from Ukraine.

Separately, it is worth noting unmanned aerial vehicles, among which there are even shock ones. Azerbaijan bought them from Israel.

The country's Air Force is armed with Soviet MiG-29 fighters (16 units), MiG-25 interceptors (20 units), Su-24 and Su-17 bombers, and Su-25 attack aircraft (19 units). In addition, the Azerbaijani Air Force has 40 L-29 and L-39 trainers, 28 Mi-24 attack helicopters and Mi-8 and Mi-17 combat transport helicopters supplied by Russia.

Armenia has a much smaller military potential, due to its more modest share in the Soviet "legacy". Yes, and with finances, Yerevan is 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 ground forces of Armenia today is 48 thousand people, another 210 thousand are in reserve. Together with the NKR, the country can deploy about 70 thousand fighters, which is comparable to the army of Azerbaijan, 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 at the factories of the USSR. Armenia has practically no money to modernize the army. Russia transfers its old weapons to it and gives loans to buy weapons (of course, Russian ones).

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

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

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

Caucasian knot

Today, the position of Azerbaijan looks much more preferable. The country has managed to create a modern and very strong armed forces, which was proved 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." In Armenia, things in the economy are traditionally bad. So for the Armenian leadership, the 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 roughly comparable, but in terms of their organization, the armies of Armenia and the NKR are decades behind the 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 areas will equalize everything turned out to be erroneous.

Israeli MLRS Lynx (caliber 300 mm and range 150 km) surpass in their accuracy and range everything that was made in the USSR and is now being produced in Russia. In combination with Israeli drones, the Azerbaijani army got the opportunity to inflict powerful and deep strikes on enemy targets.

The Armenians, having launched their counteroffensive, could not dislodge the enemy from all their positions.

With a high degree of probability, we can say that the war will not end. Azerbaijan demands to liberate the regions surrounding Karabakh, but the leadership of Armenia 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 of the superiority of its own army, another myth has been shattered: that of Russia as a reliable ally. Over the past years, Azerbaijan has been receiving the latest Russian weapons, while 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 the last war, he sided with the Armenians. But this time the situation may change. A large Azerbaijani diaspora lives in Iran, whose opinion the country's leadership cannot ignore.

Recently, talks were held in Vienna between the presidents of the countries mediated by the United States. 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 should Baku offer to support such a move?

The worst-case scenario for the Kremlin would be the start of a full-scale war in the region. With the Donbass and Syria on the sidelines, Russia may simply not pull another armed conflict on its periphery.

Video about the Karabakh conflict

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The essence and history of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh has been one of the most potentially explosive points in the South Caucasus for more than 25 years. Today there is a war going on here again – Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of escalation. Read the history of the conflict in Sputnik Help.

TBILISI, April 3 - Sputnik. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR. Negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict have been held since 1992 within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a historical region in Transcaucasia. The population (as of January 1, 2013) is 146.6 thousand people, the vast majority are Armenians. The administrative center is the city of Stepanakert.

Background

Armenian and Azerbaijani sources have different points of view on the history of the region. According to Armenian sources, Nagorno-Karabakh (ancient Armenian name - Artsakh) at the beginning of the first millennium BC. was part of the political and cultural sphere of Assyria and Urartu. First mentioned in the cuneiform writing of Sardur II, king of Urartu (763-734 BC). In the early Middle Ages, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Armenia, according to Armenian sources. After most of this country was captured by Turkey and Persia in the Middle Ages, the Armenian principalities (melikdoms) of Nagorno-Karabakh retained a semi-independent status. In the 17th-18th centuries, the princes of Artsakh (meliks) headed liberation struggle Armenians against the Shah's Persia and Sultan's Turkey.

According to Azerbaijani sources, Karabakh is one of the most ancient historical regions of Azerbaijan. According to the official version, the appearance of the term "Karabakh" dates back to the 7th century and is interpreted as a combination of the Azerbaijani words "gara" (black) and "bagh" (garden). Among other provinces, Karabakh (Ganja in Azerbaijani terminology) was part of the Safavid state in the 16th century, and later became an independent Karabakh khanate.

In 1813, according to the Gulistan peace treaty, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Russia.

In early May 1920, Soviet power was established in Karabakh. On July 7, 1923, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (AO) was formed from the mountainous part of Karabakh (part of the former Elizavetpol province) as part of the Azerbaijan SSR with the administrative center in the village of Khankendy (now Stepanakert).

How did the war start

On February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of the regional Council of Deputies of the NKAR adopted a decision "On a petition to the Supreme Soviets of the AzSSR and the ArmSSR on the transfer of the NKAO from the AzSSR to the ArmSSR."

The refusal of the allied and Azerbaijani authorities caused demonstrations of protest by Armenians not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in Yerevan.

On September 2, 1991, a joint session of the Nagorno-Karabakh regional and Shahumyan district councils took place in Stepanakert, which adopted a Declaration on the proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, the Shaumyan region and part of the Khanlar region of the former Azerbaijan SSR.

On December 10, 1991, a few days before the official collapse of the Soviet Union, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which the vast majority of the population - 99.89% - voted for complete independence from Azerbaijan.

Official Baku recognized this act as illegal and abolished the existing Soviet years autonomy of Karabakh. Following this, an armed conflict began, during which Azerbaijan tried to keep Karabakh, and the Armenian detachments defended the independence of the region with the support of Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora from other countries.

Victims and losses

The losses of both sides during the Karabakh conflict amounted, according to various sources, to 25 thousand people were killed, more than 25 thousand were injured, hundreds of thousands of civilians left their places of residence, more than four thousand people are missing.

As a result of the conflict, Azerbaijan lost over Nagorno-Karabakh and - in whole or in part - seven regions adjacent to it.

Negotiation

On May 5, 1994, through the mediation of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh signed a protocol calling for a ceasefire on the night of May 8-9. This document entered the history of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict as the Bishkek Protocol.

The negotiation process to resolve the conflict began in 1991. Since 1992, negotiations have been underway on a peaceful settlement of the conflict within the framework of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. The group also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey.

Since 1999, regular bilateral and trilateral meetings of the leaders of the two countries have been held. The last meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan within the framework of the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem took place on December 19, 2015 in Bern (Switzerland).

Despite the confidentiality surrounding the negotiation process, it is known that they are based on the so-called updated Madrid principles, transmitted by the OSCE Minsk Group to the parties to the conflict on January 15, 2010. The main principles of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, called Madrid, were presented in November 2007 in the capital of Spain.

Azerbaijan insists on maintaining its territorial integrity, Armenia defends the interests of the unrecognized republic, since the NKR is not a party to the negotiations.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: causes of the conflict

The war in Nagorno-Karabakh is smaller than the Chechen one, with about 50,000 deaths, but the duration of this conflict is longer than all the Caucasian wars of recent decades. So, today it is worth remembering why Nagorno-Karabakh became known to the whole world, the essence and causes of the conflict, and what the latest news is from this region.

Prehistory of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh

The prehistory of the Karabakh conflict is very long, but in short, its cause can be expressed as follows: Azerbaijanis, who are Muslims, have long begun to argue over territory with Armenians, who are Christians. It is difficult for a modern layman to understand the essence of the conflict, since killing each other because of nationality and religion in the 20-21 century, yes, as well as because of the territory, is complete idiocy. Well, you don’t like the state within whose borders you find yourself, pack your bags, but go to Tula or Krasnodar to sell tomatoes - you are always welcome there. Why war, why blood?

The scoop is to blame

Once, under the USSR, Nagorno-Karabakh was included in the Azerbaijan SSR. By mistake or not by mistake, it doesn’t matter, but the Azerbaijanis had paper on land. Probably, it would be possible to agree peacefully, dance a collective lezginka and treat each other with watermelon. But it was not there. The Armenians did not want to live in Azerbaijan, to accept its language and legislation. But they didn’t really intend to dump to Tula to sell tomatoes or to their own Armenia. Their argument was ironclad and quite traditional: “Didas lived here!”.

The Azerbaijanis also did not want to give up their territory, they also had didas living there, and there was also paper on the ground. Therefore, they did exactly the same as Poroshenko in Ukraine, Yeltsin in Chechnya and Snegur in Transnistria. That is, they sent in troops to restore constitutional order and protect the integrity of the borders. The first channel would call it a Bandera punitive operation or an invasion of blue fascists. By the way, the well-known hotbeds of separatism and wars, the Russian Cossacks, actively fought on the side of the Armenians.

In general, the Azerbaijanis started shooting at the Armenians, and the Armenians at the Azerbaijanis. In those years, God sent a sign to Armenia - the Spitak earthquake, in which 25,000 people died. Well, it seems like the Armenians would have taken it and left for the vacant place, but they still really did not want to give the land to the Azerbaijanis. And so they shot at each other for almost 20 years, signed all sorts of agreements, stopped shooting, and then started again. The latest news from Nagorno-Karabakh is still periodically full of headlines about shootings, killed and wounded, that is, although there is no big war, it is smoldering. In 2014, with the participation of the OSCE Minsk Group, together with the United States and France, a process was launched to resolve this war. But this did not bear fruit either - the point continues to be hot.

Everyone probably guesses that there is a Russian trace in this conflict. Russia really could have settled the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh a long time ago, but it is unprofitable for it. Formally, it recognizes the borders of Azerbaijan, but it helps Armenia - just as duplicitously as in Transnistria!

Both states are very dependent on Russia and lose this dependence Russian government doesn't want to. Both countries have Russian military installations - in Armenia, the base in Gyumri, and in Azerbaijan - the Gabala radar station. Russian Gazprom deals with both countries, buying gas for supplies to the EU. And if one of the countries comes out from under Russian influence, it will be able to become independent and rich, what good else will it join NATO or hold a gay parade. Therefore, Russia is very interested in the weak countries of the CIS, and that is why it supports death, war and conflicts there.

But as soon as the power changes, Russia will unite with Azerbaijan and Armenia within the EU, tolerance will come in all countries, Muslims, Christians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Russians will hug each other and will visit each other.

The new government in Armenia inherited old problems, the most difficult of them being the Karabakh conflict. This confrontation has been smoldering in the South Caucasus since the beginning of the 20th century and flared up with renewed vigor at the time of the collapse of the USSR. For two years, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought for Nagorno-Karabakh, and then negotiations began, which are still ongoing. But the threat new war has not gone away, and perhaps now it is more real than ever. found out how the Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontation began, what is happening today in Karabakh and why a war could break out there any day.

Reduce the Armenian population

The likelihood of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan is currently very high, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. According to him, the aggressive policy of Azerbaijan leaves no choice but to prepare for an armed clash and expect it every day. For the inhabitants of Karabakh, these words did not come as a revelation. For many years they have been living in a state of unsteady truce, which can end at any moment.

Many mistakenly think that the Karabakh conflict, like all bad things, comes from the 1990s. In fact, he is already 100 years old. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, its southern border - Transcaucasia, or rather, the South Caucasus - was not divided by Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians. At first, everyone wanted to live together, and in the spring of 1918 they even created a common state - the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. But something went wrong, and after just a month three independent states were formed: Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian. All three were constantly in conflict with each other over disputed territories, and it was then that the first Karabakh war began.

Clashes continued until the Sovietization of Azerbaijan in 1920. The resistance of the Armenians was suppressed by the Red Army, and two years later Armenia itself became part of the USSR. But even before that, in 1921, by the decision of the Soviet authorities, Nagorno-Karabakh was ceded to Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomy within it.

During the Soviet period, Armenians and Azerbaijanis got along relatively peacefully, although not without problems. The authorities of the Azerbaijan SSR now and then received accusations of discrimination against the Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO), of deliberately “leveling” demography, deliberate isolation of the region, and so on. Later, the president of already independent Azerbaijan, in an interview with the Zerkalo newspaper, for example, confirmed that in the Soviet years he worked specifically to reduce the Armenian population of Karabakh and increase the number of Azerbaijanis living there.

Despite Moscow's desire not to allow even a hint of interethnic conflicts, since the 1960s, Yerevan began to increasingly hint at the need to annex the historically Armenian Karabakh, populated predominantly by Armenians, to Armenia. Such initiatives were sharply suppressed by the center, and discontent was accumulating in Armenia and Karabakh. The situation changed dramatically in the late 1980s, when the collapse of the USSR began. Perestroika, the policy of glasnost, the mitigation of censorship in the media, on the one hand, and the rapid decline in the rating of trust in the central government, on the other, led to the fact that in Armenia the voices of the national democrats began to sound louder, while in Azerbaijan these changes were late.

Naturally, the Armenians first of all raised the issue of joining Karabakh to Armenia - most of the population of the region was and remained Armenian (76 percent). Without thinking twice, at the beginning of 1988, in the capital of Karabakh, Stepanakert, at a meeting of people's deputies of the autonomy, a corresponding document was drawn up and sent to the leadership of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and also to Moscow. In fact, a new open round of confrontation between the two peoples began with this - a week later, a massacre of Armenians (Sumgayit pogroms) took place in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgayit. Officially, 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis became victims, but historians note the obvious unreliability of these data: in reality, the bill went to hundreds.

The geography of the Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes expanded, the mutual flow of refugees increased. According to the All-Union Population Census of 1979, 475,000 Armenians lived in Azerbaijan, and 160,000 Azerbaijanis lived in Armenia. Ten years later, according to the 1989 census, 390,000 Armenians remained in Azerbaijan, and 85,000 Azerbaijanis remained in Armenia. A year later, this data was almost nullified.

Three Years' War

At the end of 1989, Yerevan and Stepanakert nevertheless adopted a joint resolution that NKAO is part of Armenia, after which shooting began on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, including with the use of artillery. In Baku, pogroms of the remaining Armenian population took place - 30-35 thousand people, mainly representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia, were forced to flee.

The Soviet authorities tried to take the situation under control, and for some time they succeeded - the Soviet army, together with the Azerbaijani police, carried out joint operations against the Armenian detachments. But a year later, the Union collapsed, and the Soviet army was simply gone. On August 30, 1991, the Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed independence, and on September 2, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). Baku did not recognize Stepanakert's decision. As for Armenia, on August 23, 1990, a declaration of independence was adopted in Yerevan, and on September 23, 1991, the results of a referendum on secession from the USSR were officially announced. And in 1992, the war for Karabakh began, which lasted three years.

In military terms, the Azerbaijanis were considered favorites: three times more manpower, more military equipment, "international" support: such famous characters as, and even fought against the Armenians of Karabakh on the side of Azerbaijan. Mercenaries were recruited throughout the former USSR and the Middle East.

The Karabakh Armenians, in turn, were directly supported by Armenia. In addition, Armenians from the foreign diaspora went to fight for their own - among them, the national hero of Armenia Monte Melkonyan, who died on the battlefield, the now famous Armenian politician Zhirayr Sefilyan and others.

Military luck was on the side of the Armenians. No one has reliably confirmed the data on losses, the most realistic ones are 7-8 thousand killed from the Armenian side and 15-18 thousand from the Azerbaijani side. As a result of the war, Nagorno-Karabakh received de facto independence from Azerbaijan. In addition, the Armenian forces formed a security belt around Karabakh, adding in whole or in part seven neighboring regions of the former Azerbaijan SSR: Kelbajar, Lachin, Kubatly, Jabrayil, Zangelan, Aghdam, Fizuli. Together with the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, this is approximately 19 thousand square kilometers.

In May 1994, a trilateral ceasefire protocol was signed in Bishkek, which was signed by Azerbaijani Defense Minister Mammadrafi Mammadov, Armenian Defense Minister (future president) and Defense Minister of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Samvel Babayan. This marked the beginning of the negotiation process, which continues to this day under the auspices of the Minsk Group (MG) with the participation of Russia, France and the United States.

Stick to principles

At the same time, Nagorno-Karabakh dropped out of the negotiations. The first and second presidents of Armenia and respectively blame each other for this. But the fact remains: since 1997, the representatives of Stepanakert have not participated in the Armenian-Azerbaijani meetings on Karabakh, their presence in the negotiation process is limited to communication with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs during their visits to the region.

To date, the negotiations are built around the so-called Madrid principles and a six-point roadmap.

The principles are the most correct: the non-use of force and threats, territorial integrity and the right of peoples to self-determination. However, the last two points effectively exclude any agreements. The Armenian side points to the priority of the peoples' right to self-determination, while the Azerbaijani side points to territorial integrity. But this is not so bad, with points it is even more difficult:

1) a referendum on the final status should be held in Nagorno-Karabakh, which will have legal force;
2) before that, Nagorno-Karabakh should be given an internationally recognized intermediate status;
3) there should be a land connection between Armenia and Karabakh (we are talking about the Lachin corridor, which connects both territories, but passes through the Azerbaijani region included in the security belt);
4) all refugees and displaced persons must be returned to the places of their former residence;
5) peacekeepers must be deployed in the conflict zone;
6) the territories of the security belt around Karabakh should be transferred to Azerbaijan.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan verbally accepted the principles. But only in words. In reality, this roadmap is a dead end for both Yerevan and Baku, and even more so for Stepanakert. Azerbaijan, through the mouth of its president, declares that it will return Karabakh at any cost, which means that Baku deliberately refuses any referendum and its legal force. And such statements are made regularly.

“We will never allow the creation of a second Armenian state on our historical lands. There is one way to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and this is the restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” he said no more than two months ago.

The paragraph on the return of refugees causes criticism - in Azerbaijan, since the end of the war, they have learned to somehow count them in a special way. During the years of the war and immediately before it, 583 thousand Azerbaijanis left Armenia, Karabakh and the adjacent regions, of which approximately 165-170 thousand left Armenia itself, and at that time about 40 thousand Azerbaijanis lived in the NKAR. But today in Azerbaijan they are talking about a million refugees who must return to Karabakh and vote in a referendum. It is obvious that with such "statistics" there will be no referendum in Karabakh, where today at most 100-110 thousand people live.

The Armenian side, in turn, has questions about who will hold the referendum, what peacekeepers they will be, and so on. But the most important and fundamental issue is the transfer of the territories of the security belt around Karabakh to Azerbaijan. It doesn't matter what is signed or said where, something else is important: any politician in Armenia or Karabakh who hints about it will be, if not hung from the nearest tree, then expelled in disgrace.

four day war

It is not surprising that there has been no progress in the negotiations for more than 10 years. Moreover, the situation is constantly getting more complicated: the shelling on the line of contact became permanent in 2008 and became more intense every year. Today they shoot almost every day. At the same time, the parties accuse each other of provocations. Subversive attacks have become more frequent - at least once every two or three months, Azerbaijani groups try to penetrate the territory of Karabakh.

Sooner or later, sorties and provocations had to turn into open confrontation, and this happened in April 2016: military operations began in the Karabakh conflict zone using tanks, helicopters, drones and artillery. Armed clashes, which became the largest since the 1994 truce, were called the "April War", or "four-day war", and ended with the fact that 800 hectares of territory passed under the control of Azerbaijan.

The then President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, called these 800 hectares "having no strategic significance." Nevertheless, in four days of fighting, the Armenian side lost 77 people killed, of which 64 were military men, 13 were volunteers. Baku first announced 31 dead, then announced the number of dead as a state secret, but the Azerbaijani media published a list of 93 names, which was not refuted by the authorities, and a criminal case was opened for publishing the document on the Azerbaijani Meydan TV.

The war ended with a conditional reconciliation of the parties, while the shelling did not stop, and not only in the conflict zone: the territory of Armenia itself is regularly shelled, in particular, in the north-east of the country - in the Tavush and Gegharkunik regions.

In recent months, unusual activity has also been observed on the border of Armenia and the Nakhichevan autonomy - an exclave within Azerbaijan, separated from it by Armenia. In early July, the advanced positions of the Armenian Armed Forces, noticing active fortification work on the other side of the border, opened fire and destroyed the Azerbaijani post. To this, Baku said that they had carried out a successful operation and “liberated 11,000 hectares of land,” including strategic heights. And then it turned out that this territory was already on the territory of Nakhichevan, the Azerbaijani posts simply moved towards the border.

Historical land of Azerbaijan

It is obvious that under such conditions, changing the Karabakh status quo is unrealistic, especially considering that Azerbaijan refuses the monitoring of ceasefire violations proposed by Armenia, and also does not support the idea of ​​withdrawing snipers. Instead, Baku allocates considerable funds for the purchase of weapons: the military budget in 2018 is planned at $1.6 billion, which, although less than the same indicator in 2014 ($3.4 billion), is still more than the modest Armenian half a billion.

The combat tension along the perimeter and the strengthening of the Azerbaijani army are exacerbated by political rhetoric: the Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev more than once or twice called Yerevan "Irevan", which is the "historical land of Azerbaijan" and where Azerbaijanis need to be returned, and over Khankendi (the Azerbaijani name for Stepanakert) hoist an Azerbaijani flag.

In response to these and other statements from official Baku, the newly elected Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stressed that Nagorno-Karabakh should return to the negotiating table, and Yerevan cannot represent Stepanakert, since the authorities in Armenia are not elected by the Karabakh people. Pashinyan said this in the Armenian parliament, presenting the government's program, and then sent his son to the army - specifically to Karabakh.

In Karabakh itself, meanwhile, they say that Azerbaijan is preparing for war. During the days of the April protests, the unrecognized republic published one after another several videos from the front line, which show how heavy equipment is being drawn to the conflict zone - tanks, armored personnel carriers, and so on. Already in June, Tigran Abrahamyan, adviser to the NKR President, said that, in addition to the approach of equipment, unprecedented activity of special forces, in particular snipers, was observed on the line of contact.

“In terms of the degree of danger, we can unequivocally state that since the April 2016 war, the situation in the conflict zone is now the most tense. Azerbaijan is active in several directions of the front line at once, there is a real threat of a sharp aggravation of the situation,” Abrahamyan said.

But there is a nuance...

It should be noted that recently the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone has gradually stabilized and, as Pashinyan said the other day, on some days everything is even calmer than usual. His words were confirmed by the commander of the NKR Defense Army, Lieutenant-General Levon Mnatsakanyan. At a press conference in Stepanakert on July 24, he reported that over the past two days, Azerbaijan has sharply reduced the frequency of ceasefire violations. According to the military, "this has never happened before on the front line."

Photo: Asatur Yesayants / Sputnik / RIA Novosti

Nevertheless, in 2016, Azerbaijan attempted revenge and showed that it was really ready to unfreeze the conflict. However, at that time Baku had its own internal reasons - due to a sharp drop in oil prices, the country's economy was on the verge of collapse, up to bans on currency exchange. The decision to shift attention from internal to external problems played the role of a trump card in the sleeve and helped the Azerbaijani authorities to ride out the storm. This time, the signal for a new aggravation, apparently, was the political instability in Armenia, associated with the "velvet revolution".

However, the new government of Armenia, firstly, resisted - and did it quite convincingly. Secondly, Baku cannot fail to understand that if two years ago the war was stopped on the fourth day without losing either territory or face, then this time everything could turn out differently. Especially when there is an ambitious government on the other side of the front, for which the outcome of the Karabakh confrontation is a matter of life and death.

Most likely, the parties will again return to the dusty negotiating table in order to once again declare their desire for a peaceful settlement and disperse. But there is a chance that this time the Armenian prime minister will cheer up the situation a little. Nikol Pashinyan's statement about the need to return Nagorno-Karabakh to the negotiating table is a hint at a possible revision of the established format of the OSCE Minsk Group. If the demand to return the status of a participant in the negotiations to Stepanakert is harshly stated, this will be tantamount to their boycott, which may be followed by a fat point: the recognition of the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenia.

In the event of such an unexpected turnaround, the next step is obvious - the unification of the two Armenian states. Such a decision will subsequently be difficult to reverse without the risk of being hanged. But if it comes to unification, the question will inevitably arise of the extent to which the jurisdiction of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) extends to Nagorno-Karabakh. Today, Karabakh, as an unrecognized state, is in a gray zone, but Karabakh, as a region of Armenia, is a completely different matter. By a strange "coincidence", just the other day, Nikol Pashinyan spoke on the topic of the CSTO, noting the need to clarify the obligations assumed by the participating countries - Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Pashinyan's statement was perceived by many as a transparent allusion to weapons, including offensive ones, that Armenia's allies, in particular Russia and Belarus, are selling to Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, in the context of the Karabakh zugzwang and a possible breakdown in negotiations, the proposal to “clarify commitments” acquires a completely different, deeper meaning. Security is a broad concept.

Thus, the way out of the situation, which Nikol Pashinyan hinted at, is a box with a double bottom, despite the fact that for Azerbaijan one is worse than the other. If such a scenario is realized, Ilham Aliyev will either have to admit defeat or start a full-scale war. Both options are unacceptable to him. But now it's his turn, and everyone remembers well what cards he has up his sleeve.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH

CONFLICT: BACKGROUND, DEVELOPMENT, CONSEQUENCES

A.G. Ibragimov

Baku State University, Baku, Azerbaijan

Annotation. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict went down in history as one of the most tragic, it was reflected in the fate of millions of people. Both at the pre-war stage of the conflict and afterwards, the moral truth was on the Azerbaijani side, which defended the status quo, the administrative-territorial division, which did not impede the comprehensive development of the Azerbaijani and Armenian nations. As a result of the aggression of Armenia in 1993-1994. seven regions of Azerbaijan around Nagorno-Karabakh were also captured - Kelbajar, Lachin, Kubatly, Jabrayil, Zangilan, Aghdam and Fizuli. About 1 million people became refugees and forced migrants. In May 1994, the Bishkek ceasefire protocol was signed. The escalation of the armed conflict resulted in the adoption by the UN Security Council of four resolutions on April 30, July 29, October 14 and November 12, 1993. These resolutions confirmed the territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Key words: Nagorno-Karabakh, conflict, Armenian aggression, occupation, refugees,

An analysis of primary sources and literature shows that the main goal of the territorial claims and aggression of the Armenian side against Azerbaijan from the very beginning was the desire to lay the foundation of the Armenian state at the expense of Azerbaijani lands, and then, expanding it in various ways, to create "Great Armenia". Although during the years of Soviet power the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh was raised repeatedly, the Armenians and their patrons at that time could not achieve their goals. Therefore, they would have to

whether to wait for a certain historical moment.

Karabakh is one of the most ancient historical regions of Azerbaijan. The name of Karabakh, which is considered an integral part of Azerbaijan, comes from the Azerbaijani words "gara" (black) and "bag" (garden). The phrase "gara" and "bug" has the same ancient history like the history of the Azerbaijani people. The assignment of this phrase throughout the world to a specific territory of Azerbaijan is an irrefutable truth. The word "Karabakh", which the Azerbaijani people called part of their native land, was mentioned in the original sources 1300 years ago (since the 7th century!)1. Initially, "Karabakh" as a historical-geographical concept meant a specific space, but later it was referred to the vast geographical territory of Azerbaijan.

As you can see, being a political-geographical space, in history there has always been a concept not "Nagorno-Karabakh", but a concept that covers the entire territory of Karabakh as a whole - mountains, plains - the general concept of "Karabakh". In other words, the concept of "Nagorno-Karabakh" is a "product" of a later time and is a name given from the separatist intentions of one of the parts of Karabakh. The usual logic confirms this: if there is Nagorno-Karabakh, then there is a flat one, i.e. base, Karabakh! The truth is that today in Azerbaijan there is both Nagorno-Karabakh and Low-lying Karabakh (that is, plain Karabakh!). Both plain (low-lying) and mountainous Karabakh in all historical epochs were the homeland of only one people - the Azerbaijani, in whose language there are the words "gara" and "bag".

Hundreds of the oldest, rarest examples of folklore, musical masterpieces of the Azerbaijani people were created in Karabakh and are associated with Karabakh.

According to the Kurekchay Treaty, the Karabakh Khanate, as an exclusively

1 Karabakh: etymology, territory and borders//

http://azerbaijan.az/portal/Karabakh/History/history_r.

the Sulman-Azerbaijani land was subordinated to Russia [Guseinov 2009: 246252]. The Kurekchay Treaty, which reflects historical reality, is at the same time the most reliable document proving that Karabakh, including the mountainous part of this region, belongs to the Azerbaijani people.

According to the Kurekchay Treaty of 1805, the Karabakh Khanate was actually annexed to Russia. During the liquidation of the Karabakh Khanate, his ethnic composition was reflected in the "Description", compiled by order of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Caucasus, A.P. Yermolov (1816-1827). According to the "Description" in the Karabakh province, out of 20,095 families, 15,729 were Azerbaijani (1111 in the city, 14,618 in the village), 4366 were Armenian, including Albanian (421 in the city, 3945 in the village)1. By the way, most of these Armenians were Gregorianized and Armenianized Albanians. As a result of the mass resettlement of Armenians in Karabakh, new Armenian villages began to appear here. (Later, the Armenians erected monuments in Karabakh “in honor” of the resettlement, but in the 80s of the 20th century, after claiming Azerbaijani lands, they were destroyed). According to official data, from 1828 to 1830, in just 2 years, 40,000 Armenians were resettled from Iran, and 90,000 from the Ottoman Empire, to Northern Azerbaijan, including Karabakh. With unofficial Armenian settlers, their number crossed 200 thousand2

Thus, tsarist Russia created good conditions for the mass resettlement of Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan, in particular, in Karabakh, as well as for their administrative-political, socio-economic and cultural development. Soon the Armenian side began to openly fight for the implementation of the idea of ​​"Great Armenia" in the Azerbaijani lands. One of the main components of this idea was the destruction of the local population, i.e. Azerbaijanis in Karabakh, Irevan, Nakhchivan and other lands

1 Notes by A.P. Yermolov 1798-1826 M., 1991.

2 Caucasian calendar of the Russian Empire 1897, LXIII - Elizabethan province. St. Petersburg, 1904, p.3

Azerbaijan, and the seizure of the lands on which they lived. Since 1890, after the failure of the Armenian uprisings against the Ottoman state, North Azerbaijan became the center of the struggle.

The Armenian side, starting from 1905, began the purposeful mass extermination of the Azerbaijani people. The policy of the Armenian genocide against the Azerbaijanis in Karabakh took on a more tragic form. However, even the massacres committed in 1905-1906. did not calm the Armenians. Using the historical conditions created by the First World War, they again set out to create a mythical state - "Great Armenia".

In 1915, after the failure of new rebellions against the Ottoman state, the Armenian side, concentrating the main forces in the South Caucasus, continued the genocide against the Azerbaijanis. After the fall of tsarist power in Russia (February 1917), then the Bolsheviks came to power (October 1917), in the anarchic situation that had arisen in Transcaucasia, the Armenian armed groups, united with the Dashnaks-Bolsheviks, moved to a new, more terrible stage of genocide against Azerbaijanis.

New mass exterminations that began in March 1918 in Baku, then engulfed the whole of Azerbaijan, dealt a crushing blow to the Azerbaijani people. With the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, a new stage began in the history of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic has taken measures to stop the implementation of the plans of armed gangs and the Dashnak-Bolshevik regime to destroy the Azerbaijani people in Northern Azerbaijan.

On May 28, 1918, the Azerbaijani people created an independent state in Northern Azerbaijan. In the Declaration of Independence, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic declared that it was the legal heir to the lands of Northern Azerbaijan occupied by Russia on the basis of the Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828) treaties [Azerbaijanskaya Respublika 1998: 273].

The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic has published a legally and politically substantiated geographical map its territory. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic sought to restore its legal authority over the entire historical territory of Karabakh, which is an integral part of Azerbaijan. At the same time, the newly declared Armenian (Ararat) Republic put forward its unfounded claims to Karabakh. The government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic rejected these claims.

In order to seize Karabakh, the Armenian side continued the previously begun genocide during the period of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The Azerbaijani government, taking into account the current situation, in January 1919 created the Karabakh province, which included Shusha, Javanshir, Jabrayil and Zangezur districts. At the end of 1919 and in the spring of 1920. armed bandit groups of Armenian Dashnaks in the territory of Zangezur committed mass destruction of the peaceful Azerbaijani population.

During the period of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, one of the most treacherous armed rebellions of Armenians in Shusha took place on March 22, 1920, on the day of the celebration of the Novruz holiday by the Azerbaijani people. This separatist rebellion was commissioned by the Bolsheviks, who wanted to take over Azerbaijan. Despite the fact that they managed to suppress this Armenian separatist rebellion in many places, they still managed to capture the fortress of Askeran. As a result of military-political measures, the Azerbaijan People's Republic restored sovereign rights in Karabakh. However, the separatist rebellions of the Armenian side against the state on whose territory they lived, and the genocide they committed on the eve of the occupation in April 1920, damaged the protection of the northern borders of the country and accelerated the collapse of the independent Azerbaijani state.

According to the relief, Karabakh is divided into flat and mountainous parts. This reality has found its confirmation in science. So, the son of the famous Caucasian scholar M.A. Skibits-whom A.M. Skibitsky in his article “Caucasian Crisis” writes: “The mountainous part of the Karabakh Khanate at that time was called Nagorno-Karabakh. This included in the east - the Karabakh mountain range, in the west - the lands between the mountains of Zangezur, as well as the Karabakh plateau separating Upper Karabakh from Lower Karabakh, Aran" [Skibitsky 1991]. As it turns out, the territory of Karabakh, when it was part of tsarist Russia, i.e. the lands of the former Karabakh khanate underwent various administrative divisions and therefore the concept of "Karabakh" lost its former meaning. The term "Nagorno-Karabakh" was put into circulation at the same time by the Dashnaks.

Since that time, the concept of "Nagorno-Karabakh" began to acquire not only geographical, but also political interest. After the Bolsheviks seized power in Northern Azerbaijan, this concept began to acquire administrative and political significance, turning into one of the main concepts in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations. At the same time, there is a change around Nagorno-Karabakh from a geographical point of view. As A. M. Skibitsky writes, “... The Karabakh plateau acquired autonomy in 1923 and was named the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Okrug or, within the new borders of Azerbaijan, abbreviated as Nagorno-Karabakh” [Skibitsky 1991].

Thus, Karabakh, an integral part of Azerbaijan, was artificially divided into lowland (aran) and mountainous parts, and the Azerbaijani leadership was forced to give autonomy status to the Armenians who settled in the mountainous part of Karabakh later. And this step was taken without taking into account the opinion of Azerbaijanis living in the same part of Karabakh, grossly violating their rights, a corresponding referendum was not held.

The territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh region was not formulated on the basis of

scientific and geographical principles that reflect real history, but was formulated on the basis of a voluntaristic approach that has its own specific goals, that is, it was organized by uniting local territories densely populated by Armenians under the name of autonomous associations.

On the one hand, the preservation of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan as historically belonging to it, and on the other hand, the special care rendered to the NKAR by Azerbaijan created exceptional opportunities for its socio-political and economic development during the period of Soviet power. However, in 1980, having set themselves the goal of separating Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, Armenian ideologists and their patrons began to openly deny this. Even in the preamble of the resolution adopted on March 24, 1988, as a result of the efforts of the patrons of the Armenian separatists, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, speaking about the socio-economic development of the NKAR, especially noted the results of development in the socio-economic sectors of the region.

The first clashes between the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides took place in February 1988 after an attempt by the leadership of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region to withdraw it from Azerbaijan. With the joint efforts of the troops and local law enforcement agencies, the situation was brought under control, the epicenter of the conflict temporarily shifted to the political plane.

The next inter-ethnic clashes in the NKAO in the autumn of 1988 led to a sharp aggravation of the situation. In late November - early December, the Armenian armed formations carried out the first large-scale operation, deporting, with the support of local law enforcement agencies and the inaction of internal troops, about 200 thousand Azerbaijanis from areas densely populated in Armenia to the territory of the neighboring republic. The deportation resulted in a general destabilization of the situation in Azerbaijan. There were mass ac-

protests of the population in Baku, Ganja, Nakhichevan and other cities.

On January 15, a state of emergency was introduced on the territory of the NKAR and adjacent regions of Azerbaijan, and additional troops were deployed. In an effort to restore control over Azerbaijan and prevent the transfer of power to the opposition, the military-political leadership of the USSR, headed by M. Gorbachev, once again ignoring the causes, nature and specifics of the events, authorized a large-scale military operation. On the night of January 19/20, troops were brought into the city, undertaking an operation to unblock the engineering barriers created on the outskirts of Baku and within its boundaries. The introduction of troops was accompanied by deliberate firing to kill and significant casualties among the population.

Since the end of August, the Internal Troops of the USSR, by order of the command, practically ceased to enforce the state of emergency in the NKAR. Taking advantage of this circumstance, the leadership of the separatist movement came out of the underground, legalized its activities and proclaimed on September 2, 1991 the creation of the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" on the territory of the autonomy. All armed groups (local militia, party formations, detachments from Armenia) numbering up to 15 thousand militants were consolidated into a single “NKR self-defense force” (later renamed the “NKR Defense Army”) and subordinated to the Defense Committee.

Armenia made full use of the peculiarities of the new geopolitical situation in order to strengthen its positions. At the end of January 1992, Armenian formations began to capture the last Azerbaijani settlements of Karabakh, which were in complete isolation. During the first half of February, Armenians, with the support of artillery and armored vehicles, captured the suburbs of Stepanakert (Kyarkidzhahan), settlements along the Shusha-Khojaly road and around Shushi. The city of Khojaly was completely blocked, air

communication with it was interrupted due to the intensive use by the Armenian side of portable anti-aircraft missile systems and anti-aircraft artillery against Azerbaijani transport helicopters. The small garrison of the city consisted of an OMON company, a territorial battalion of the local militia and a mortar battery. On the night of February 25/26, after the assault with the participation of units of the 366th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, Khojaly and the nearby airport were captured by the Armenians. Wherein personnel Armenian formations, by direct order of the command, carried out massacres against the population of the city, retreating eastward to the Azerbaijani positions.

On the night of May 7/8, an operation began to capture Shushi, accompanied by the commissioning of large forces, supported by artillery, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles. As a result of the envelopment from three sides, the Azerbaijani garrison, left without support and having lost contact with the command, after several counterattacks, was forced to withdraw on May 10 through the Lysogorsky pass to the city of Lachin, having previously destroyed the armored vehicles left without fuel and ammunition. Over the next seven days, the Armenian units continued their offensive. By May 18, with converging strikes from the regions of the city of Goris (Armenia) and Shusha (Karabakh), they established control over the city of Lachin and the highway passing through it. Thus, the Armenian army managed to create a land corridor up to 20 km wide between Armenia and the territory of Karabakh.

At the turn of 1992-1993. the military-political situation around the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has undergone a significant change. It was based on general advances in Russian policy, the growth of power tendencies, and the resuscitation of the traditional southern vector of Russian geopolitical expansion. By that time, the Armenian leaders, relying on the support of a number of groups in the leadership of Russia, managed to form an unambiguous

the conviction that Armenia is Russia's only ally and last foothold in the strategically important Caucasus region, which Moscow views as a zone of geopolitical rivalry and intensive penetration of neighboring states.

On March 27, large forces of the Armenian army, under the cover of a propaganda campaign regarding the beginning of the Azerbaijani offensive, began to capture the Kelbajar region. By the evening of April 2, after fierce fighting, the Armenian units occupied the regional center. The occupation of the Kelbajar region marked a qualitatively new period of escalation of the conflict - the beginning of the implementation by the military-political leadership of Armenia of plans for a phased occupation of part of the territory of Azerbaijan. After assessing the situation in Azerbaijan as a result of the events in Ganja, the Armenian command regrouped its forces and ordered the start of the operation. On the morning of June 12, parts of the Armenian expeditionary corps launched a massive offensive in the direction of the regional centers of Agdam and Agdar. As a result, on the night of July 23/24, after 42 days of continuous hostilities, units of the Agdam brigade were forced to leave the city and retreat to the north and east. On August 20, after stubborn battles, the Armenian units occupied the Jabrayil regional center. By August 25, the entire territory of the region was occupied. On August 22, units of the Azerbaijani army were forced to leave the city of Fizuli and the district of the same name. At the end of August, after the regrouping, the Armenian army struck in converging directions from the territory of Armenia and Karabakh to the Gubadli region of Azerbaijan. On August 31, the regional center of Gubadli was taken; the northern part of the area was occupied by 2 September.

In mid-October, the armed forces of Armenia launched another offensive on the southern sector of the front. On November 1, an Armenian armored column occupied Zangilan and the surrounding settlements.

For eight months in 1993, Azerbaijan, which was in a state of perma-

lent internal political crisis, lost control over the territory of six districts with a total area of ​​​​14 thousand square meters as a result of the enemy’s offensive. km.

Starting from May 12, 1994, active hostilities on the front line ceased. Nevertheless, despite the losses incurred, the presence of internal and economic problems, Azerbaijan has retained sufficient political will and significant military-technical, industrial, demographic, and ideological potential to continue the struggle.

The future of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a direct continuation of the status quo. First of all, because the events of diplomatic history after the conclusion of the truce are evaluated according to one moral criterion formulated by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan I. Aliyev: “Diplomatic successes, of course, make us happy ... But if our lands are still under occupation, then these results are of no fundamental importance. They will matter when the Azerbaijani lands are liberated from the occupying forces, and our compatriots return to their homes. Our compatriots must return to the occupied lands - the territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, and to Nagorno-Karabakh."

The damage that was inflicted on Azerbaijan during the Karabakh war cannot be estimated in numbers. Firstly, the Armenian aggressors brazenly seized 20% of the land of the sovereign Republic of Azerbaijan. As a result of this aggression, about 20,000 people were killed, 50,000 were wounded and disabled, more than a million people lost their native land, became forced migrants, and 5,000 people went missing. In addition, as a result of the war and the occupation of the territory, Azerbaijan suffered a huge socio-economic

damage. The total amount of direct and indirect losses amounted to about $56 billion.

1 Newspaper "Echo", 06/09/2012.

lines with a length of 25 thousand km, motor roads - 3984 km, electrical lines- 14 thousand km, water supply - 2.3 thousand km, gas pipeline - 2 thousand km, sewerage lines - 240 km, 2500 transformers, 34 thousand telephone numbers2. In addition, 4 airports remained in the occupied territory, Railway(Baku-Agdam-Khankendi and Baku-Nakhchivan-Yerevan).

As a result of the occupation of Azerbaijani lands by the Armenian side, 647.9 thousand hectares of fertile land were destroyed, including 199 thousand hectares of sown land, 62 thousand hectares of perennial crops, more than 50 thousand vineyards, 244 thousand heads of large and small cattle etc. In addition, a large number of tractors, combines, cars, as well as 7296 hydraulic installations, 36 pumping stations, 26 water-irrigation systems, etc3 were left in the occupied territories. In the occupied territories, 690 schools, 250 kindergartens, 65 professional institutions, 2 higher educational institutions. About 700 medical institutions (polyclinics, maternity hospitals, children's hospitals, ambulance stations, pharmacies, etc.) were destroyed in the occupied territories. The damage caused to health care is $ 1.2 billion. As a result of the occupation of the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Armenian armed forces destroyed and destroyed - 1421 houses of culture and clubs, 8 regional, 32 city, 10 children's and 683 rural libraries, 6 parks of culture and recreation, 47 children's music schools, 3 theaters, 3 galleries, 464 historical monuments, about 40 thousand historical items and 4.6 million books4.

Of the 22 museums plundered by the Armenian aggressors, 40,000 museum valuables and exhibits were taken away, including those of world importance worth 20.5 billion manats5. Invaders among the plundered and destroyed museums of Kelbajar-

the Museum of History and Local Lore with unique historical exhibits, gold and silver items, rare and expensive stones, carpets and other handicrafts and applied items, the museum of the history of the city of Shushi and the museum of bread in the city of Agdam, as well as the museum of stone monuments in the Zangelan region . In Aghdam, Lachin, Fizuli, Shusha, Gubadli, Jabrayil and other regions, 20 modern buildings of culture palaces were destroyed.

As a result of military aggression by the Republic of Armenia, thousands of Azerbaijani citizens were taken prisoner or hostage, and also disappeared. Presenting themselves to the whole world as a long-suffering people, the Armenians committed crimes against humanity against Azerbaijanis in the most cruel and merciless form. In order to search for and release citizens of Azerbaijan who were captured or missing, as well as to coordinate the activities of state bodies in this direction, on January 13, 1993, the State Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the Affairs of Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Citizens and its Working Group. As a result of the measures taken, 1,335 Azerbaijani citizens, including 129 children, 312 women and 246 old people, have been released from captivity. 4,869 people, including 55 children, 326 women, and 409 old people, are listed as missing.1 18 children, 46 women, 69 old people) were taken captive or hostage by the Armenians2. Despite the fact that the Armenian side completely denies the fact of the capture of these people, some of this list was visited by representatives of the International Committee in captivity.

1 Captured, taken hostage and missing / http: // azerbaijan. az/portal/ Karabakh/Tragedy/humanitarianTragedy_03_r.html

Red Cross. As well as the International Working Group on the search for missing persons, the release of prisoners and hostages, consisting of human rights activists from Germany, Russia and Georgia, confirm the fact that some people from this list were taken prisoner. As a result of the latest ethnic cleansing policy carried out in a systematic manner by Armenia in 1988-1992, 250,000 Azerbaijanis living on its territory and taking refuge in Azerbaijan were forcibly expelled to the last of their homes. Since 1988, a plan has been carried out for the forced expulsion of Azerbaijanis living in 126 settlements Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an integral part of Azerbaijan. It was during this period that the most tragic event of the twentieth century took place. - Armenian armed forces with the support of Soviet troops in one night in Nagorno-Karabakh defeated the city of Khojaly, in which 6 thousand Azerbaijanis lived, brutally, brutally killed 613 civilians, 150 people went missing. In this bloody tragedy, 1,000 civilians were injured to varying degrees, and 1,275 people - the elderly, women and children - were taken prisoner and subjected to cruel insults, torment, and humiliation.

As a result of the military aggression of the Armenian armed forces since 1988, more than 600 thousand people from the nearby regions of Nagorno-Karabakh were forcibly expelled from their permanent places of residence and temporarily settled in more than 1,600 objects to live in 62 cities and regions of the republic3.

REFERENCES

1. Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Baku, 1998, p. 273.

2. Gasanov A. Modern international relationships and foreign policy of Azerbaijan, Baku, 2007.

3 Refugees and internally displaced persons/ http://

azerbaijan.az/portal/Karabakh/Tragedy/humanitarian

Tragedy_02_r.html

3. Gasanov A., Abbasbeyli A. Azerbaijan in the system of international and regional organizations, Baku, 1999.

4. Guseynov S.S. Legal analysis of the Kurek-Chay treaty of 1805 between Ibrahim Khan of Karabakh and the treaties of 1813 (Gyulistan), 1828 (Turk-Menchay), concluded between the Russian Empire and Persia // Proceedings of the Russian State Pedagogical University. A.I. Herzen, issue 117, 2009, pp. 246-252.

5. Jangir Arasly. Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. military aspect. Baku: Ergun Publishing House, 1995.

6. Skibitsky A. Karabakh crisis, Soyuz, 1991, No. 7.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT: PREHISTORY, DEVELOPMENT, CONSEQUENCES

Abstract.The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered the history of the twentieth century as one of the most tragic, reflected in the destinies of millions of people. As in the pre-war stage of the conflict, and subsequently, the moral truth was on the Azerbaijani side, which defended the status quo, the administrative-territorial division, which did not impede the comprehensive development of the Azerbaijani and Armenian nations.As a result of the aggression of Armenia in 1993-1994, seven districts were captured: Kelbadjar, Lachin, Kubatly, Jabrail, Zangilan, Agdam and Fizuli. About 1 million people became refugees and internally displaced persons. In May 1994, the Bishkek Protocol on Armistice was signed. The escalation of the armed conflict in 1993 resulted in the adoption by the UN Security Council of four resolutions in 1993: April 30, July 29, October 14 and November 12, 1993. These resolutions con-

firmed the territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and adopted the formulation "Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan".

Keywords:NagornoKarabakh, conflict, Armenian aggression, occupation, refugees.

1. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Baku, 1998, p. 273.

2. Hasanov A. Modern international relations and foreign policy of Azerbaijan, Baku, 2007.

3. Hasanov A., Abbasbeyli A. Azerbaijan in the system of international and regional organizations, Baku, 1999.

4. Huseynov SS Legal analysis of the Ku-Rechchay treaty of 1805 between Ibrahim Khan of Karabakh and the agreements of 1813 (Gulistan), 1828 (Turkmenchay), concluded between the Russian Empire and Persia // Proceedings of the Russian State Pedagogical University. A.I. Herzen, issue 117, 2009, p.246-252.

5. Jhangir Arasly. The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. military aspect. Baku: Publishing House "Ergun", 1995.

6. Skibitsky A. The Karabakh crisis, the Union, 1991, No. 7.