25 years since launch of operation “Ring”

Operation “Ring” - the act of state terrorism, large-scale military-police terrorist operation carried out by Azerbaijani authorities and the Gorbachev wing of the Soviet leadership in the spring and summer of 1991 with the aim of ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh. According to Victor Krivopuskov (officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1990-1991), the deportation plan of the Armenian population of the Azerbaijan SSR, was developed in the fall of 1990 and approved in February 1991, at a session of the Supreme Council of the Republic.
 

On March 14, 1991, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution , which called on the President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev to “put an end to the attacks on the security of the population of Karabakh and adjacent Armenian-populated areas, which, apparently, is being exposed to mass resettlement”.
 

Beginning with the seizure of the ancient Armenian village of Getashen and neighbouring Martunashen on April 30, 1991, the operation spread throughout the territory of Artsakh, covering the border regions of Armenia. During the operation, more than 100 people were killed, hundreds were injured and maimed, hundreds were captured and taken hostages, the fate of many is unknown until now. More than 10 000 civilians of 25 Armenian villages were forcibly deported from their historical places of residence.
 

Operation “Ring” has been reflected in the reports of human rights organizations, including the international delegation composed of representatives of Russia, the US, the UK, Japan and Norway.

“Through the course of the operation, a lot of inhumane acts against civilians were carried out: men were captured and killed, women raped, children were subjected to ill-treatment, civilians were kidnapped and taken hostages. Azerbaijani Turks from the nearby villages came on trucks, engaging in robbery and looting, stealing and taking away everything - from household goods to the cattle,” read the report. 
 

In May 1991, Human Rights Committee of the Supreme Council held a hearing, which served as a basis for a report. Also, reports on the operation “Ring” were made by the "Memorial" society  and Harvard University Professor, Richard Wilson.
 

In May 1991, the US Senate adopted a resolution condemning “the attacks on innocent children, women and men in the Armenian villages within Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding territories, as well as in Armenia”, and calling “to put an end to the blockade and other forms of use of force and intimidation directed against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh”.
 

The Azerbaijan leadership considered the "Ring" as the beginning of a large-scale forcible deportation of all remaining Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. Only with the failure of the coup attempt of the State Committee on the State of Emergency in August 20, and the coming of new forces to power in Russia, the Azerbaijani leadership, having lost the support of the Soviet troops, was forced to terminate ethnic cleansing and occupation of Armenian territory.
 

Operation “Ring” sharply raised the level of tension in the region and transferred the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict to a military level, becoming a prelude to the subsequent full-scale armed aggression of Azerbaijan against Nagorno Karabakh Republic.
 

More materials on operation “Ring” and the relevant documents are available on the website Karabakhrecords.info.
 

A documentary “Operation “Ring”, Spring-Summer 1991” within the framework of the “Ordinary Genocide” project: