Karabakh War and Khojaly Massacre
In the second half of 1987, acute interethnic tensions arose in the NKAO. In February 1988, the crisis in the region intensified after the Sumgait pogrom. The personnel of the regiment to show signs of demoralization due to the factors constant attacks on military personnel with the aim of seizing weapons, a lack of proper food supply, understaffing and pressure coming from the local population. The understaffing of the personnel, which affected the impossibility of ensuring reliable protection of the regiment's facilities. [6] "Officers and soldiers didn’t receive money for months, they didn’t eat bread for weeks, they ate only crackers from the NZ (emergency reserve)". [7] In such conditions, by the end of 1991, many officers of the regiment began receiving offers to participate in hostilities on a paid basis, on the side of the Armenian armed formations. On December 25, 1991, with the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the regiment formally became part of the CIS Joint Armed Forces. At this point, officers of the regiment had begun to offer assistance to the Armenian population, while the units based in Ganja sided with the Azeri population. [8] A factor in this change in policy was the fact that 50 of the remaining 350 personnel of the regiment were Armenians, including the commander of the 2nd Battalion, Major Seyran Ohanyan. [9] [10] Of particular use to the Armenian Army was the regimental tank company's ten tanks. [11]
Following an attack on the regiment on 23 February, [12] the regiment took part in the mass murder of several hundreds of Azerbaijani civilians in the town of Khojaly on 26 February. [13] [14] [15] [16] The event, known today as the Khojaly massacre, was the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, though disputed by Czech journalist Dana Mazalová, who recalled what Azeri journalist Chingiz Mustafayev told her about the massacre, claiming Azeri forces committed a massacre of Meskhetian Turks and placed the bodies there to disrupt a Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe meeting for the conflict a month later. Mazalová added that she spoke to Azeri President Ayaz Mutalibov about the incident and said he felt Azeri forces may have committed this massacre to depose him from his presidency. [17] [18] Krasnaya Zvezda reported that personnel of the 366th took part in "military operations" in the town "despite categorical orders of the command of the military district" and that many in the regiment who were selectively searched had "large amounts of money on them, including foreign currency". [19] Russian authorities to date deny the involvement of the regiment in the atrocities at Khojaly. [20] [21] Following the massacre, the leadership of the CIS Joint Armed Forces made the decision to evacuate the regiment from Stepanakert to Vaziani in the territory of Georgia. The withdrawal of the regiment began on March 1, accompanied by battles with Armenian volunteer formations. 10 days later, the regiment was disbanded in Vaziani. [22] [8] [23] [24]
The Khojaly massacre was the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan with support from Turkey. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Sumgait pogrom was a pogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the lakeside town of Sumgait in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in late February 1988. The pogrom took place during the early stages of the Karabakh movement. On February 27, 1988, mobs of ethnic Azerbaijanis formed into groups and attacked and killed Armenians on the streets and in their apartments; widespread looting occurred, and a general lack of concern from police officers allowed the violence to continue for three days.
The Azerbaijani Land Forces are the land force component of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has been trying to create professional, well trained, and mobile armed forces. Based on 2013 statistics, the country has about 85,000 ground force troops, with additional paramilitary forces of 15,000. In addition, there are 300,000 former service personnel who have had military service in the last fifteen years.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located in the southern part of the Lesser Caucasus range, at the eastern edge of the Armenian Highlands, encompassing the highland part of the wider geographical region known as Karabakh. Under Russian and Soviet rule, the region came to be known as Nagorno-Karabakh, meaning "Mountainous Karabakh" in Russian. The name Karabakh itself was first encountered in Georgian and Persian sources from the 13th and 14th centuries to refer to lowlands between the Kura and Aras rivers and the adjacent mountainous territory.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) was an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923. Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The majority of the population were ethnic Armenians.
Operation Ring, known in Azerbaijan as Operation Chaykand was the codename for the May 1991 military operation conducted by the Soviet Army, Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the USSR and OMON units of the Azerbaijan SSR in the Khanlar and Shahumyan districts of the Azerbaijani SSR, the Shusha, Martakert and Hadrut districts of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, and along the eastern border of the Armenian SSR in the districts of Goris, Noyemberyan, Ijevan and Shamshadin. Officially dubbed a "passport checking operation," the ostensible goal of the operation was to disarm "illegal armed formations" in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, referring to irregular Armenian military detachments that had been operating in the area. The operation involved the use of ground troops accompanied by a complement of military vehicles, artillery and helicopter gunships to be used to root out the self-described Armenian fedayeen.
The Transcaucasian Military District, a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces, traces its history to May 1921 and the incorporation of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia into the Soviet Union. It was disbanded by being redesignated as a Group of Forces in the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed. The military district formed as a basis of the modern day armed forces of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia as well as unrecognized polities of Abkhazia, the Republic of Artsakh and South Ossetia.
Khojaly is a town in the Khojaly District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
There are memorials around the globe dedicated to the Azerbaijani victims of the Khojaly massacre — mostly civilians, but also armed troops — by local irregular Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992.
Alif Haciyev Latif oglu was an Azerbaijani officer, Commandant of Khojaly Airport and National Hero of Azerbaijan.
The Capture of Gushchular and Malibeyli was an incident in which eight ethnic Azerbaijani civilians were killed by Armenian irregular armed units in simultaneous attacks on the villages of Malibeyli, Ashaghi Gushchular, and Yukhari Gushchular in the Shusha District of Azerbaijan, on February 10–12, 1992 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
A rally commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 massacre of Azerbaijani civilians and armed troops by local irregular Armenian forces and the 366th Commonwealth of Independent States Guards Motor Rifle Regiment took place in Istanbul on 26 February 2012. It was the largest campaign within "Justice for Khojaly" framework. The demonstration with slogan "We are all from Khojaly" started in front of Galatasaray High School and lasted several hours in Taksim Square with around 200,000 participants.
The 23rd Guards Motor Rifle Division of the Soviet Union's Red Army was a motor rifle division active during the Cold War. After 1991-92, the division's remnants were eventually incorporated into the new Army of Azerbaijan.
Tofig Huseynov was an Azerbaijani soldier and National Hero of Azerbaijan, He commanded the Khojaly Self-Defence Battalion.
The 1988 violence in Shusha and Stepanakert was the expulsion of the ethnic Armenian population of Shusha and the ethnic Azerbaijani population of Stepanakert, in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in the Azerbaijani SSR, Soviet Union, from September 18 to 20, 1988. During the violence, 33 Armenians and 16 Azerbaijanis were wounded, more than 30 houses hed been set on fire, and a 61-year-old Armenian was killed. At the end of the violence, 3,117 ethnic Azerbaijanis were forced to leave Stepanakert.
The Battle of Hadrut began in early October 2020 in Hadrut and its surrounding villages and heights, now seat of Khojavend District, Azerbaijan, and earlier controlled by the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh and was part of Hadrut Province.
The Lachin offensive was a military operation launched by Azerbaijan against the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh and their Armenian allies along the Armenia–Azerbaijan border during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, with the suspected goal of taking control of the Lachin corridor. The offensive began in mid-October, when the Azerbaijani forces advanced into Qubadlı and Laçın Districts after capturing Zəngilan. On 25 October, the Azerbaijani forces seized control of the city of Qubadlı.
Wind Unit or Wind Group was a volunteer infantry battalion composed of Turkish nationalists. Established in 1992, by Alparslan Türkeş, the founder of the Nationalist Movement Party and the Grey Wolves, its goal was to spread the idea of Turanism in all of the Turkic countries that gained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.
"Khojaly 613" is a musical play of the French composer Pierre Tilloy dedicated to the memory of the Khojaly massacre's victims, during which the inhabitants of the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly were massacred by the Armenian armed groups.
Soviet Union 
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