TESTIMONY OF USSR MVD OFFICER V. KRIVOPUSKOV

History

On How and by Whom Operation “Ring” Was Prepared November 1990 – May 1991

…Already in November 1990, our Investigative-Operational Group obtained secret documents from the Azerbaijani leadership containing a plan for the deportation of the Armenian population from the villages of Khanlar district and the former Shaumyan district. At that time, I immediately conveyed these materials to USSR Minister of Internal Affairs Pugo. The leadership of our ministry could not fail to notice that at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR, held in early February 1991, the plan for deporting the Armenian population from the republic was in fact approved. The Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and Chairman of the Organizing Committee on the NKAO, Polyanichko, declared: “1991 has been proclaimed the Year of Karabakh. This year will be the last year of Azerbaijan’s difficulties. The land of Karabakh is our land, and we must take it for our children. The airport is already ours. But it is necessary to increase the number of OMON forces…”

In his speech before the republic’s legislative body, Azerbaijani Minister of Internal Affairs Asadov reinforced this political directive with a military one: “…the number of OMON forces will soon be increased and brought to 600 men. And in the districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh there is a ten-thousand-strong army! So entering Karabakh and taking it is merely a matter of technique.” At the same session, Azerbaijani parliamentary deputy and former member of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo Heydar Aliyev spoke. He endorsed the proposed plans and shared his historical experience in resolving interethnic issues. With pride, he stated that during his tenure as First Secretary of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, the Armenian population of the NKAO had decreased, while the Azerbaijani population had increased. In the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, Armenians had disappeared altogether.

While in Baku political and administrative tension regarding the Armenian population was rising, within the NKAO the operational situation at that time became calmer and more controlled. … Yet Armenian settlements located in Azerbaijani districts around the NKAO began to experience open armed pressure. Baku persistently demanded the involvement of ever greater numbers of troops in passport-control operations—especially the participation of the 23rd Division of the 4th Army of the USSR Armed Forces, whose commander, Colonel Budeykin, acted openly under the instructions of the republic’s leadership.

During this period, Azerbaijani proposals were increasingly supported by the Union leadership, while those from Armenia were rejected. The fact was that state power in Armenia had, as is known, passed democratically from the communists into the hands of representatives of the AOD movement and the “Karabakh” Committee—figures whom neither Gorbachev nor his associates wished to recognize. Mutalibov and Polyanichko immediately took advantage of the practical absence of relations between Moscow and Armenia’s new leadership. … In effect, the Karabakh movement at this time was left without any real support from the leadership of the Armenian SSR. Azerbaijan, however, did not ease its pressure.

…I possessed extensive material characterizing the socio-political situation in the republic connected with Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as opinions and assessments of the Baku events of January 1990. The data I collected were disheartening. The Armenian pogroms of Black January 1990, the entry of troops into Baku to suppress the anti-state actions of the Azerbaijani Popular Front—actions that claimed the lives not only of civilians but also of soldiers—continued to affect the internal political atmosphere in the republic’s capital. The organizations of the Popular Front were once again noticeably strengthening. At their head stood well-known figures occupying high social positions, often among the leaders of major enterprises and farms. Information appeared about the creation of a Party of National Independence and even about the “Grey Wolves”—the Azerbaijani branch of the nationalist Turkist party of the same name based in Istanbul.

Alongside traditional Islamic structures, underground—or, as they were also called, parallel—groups and associations began to develop actively in the republic. The influence of fundamentalists from Iran, Wahhabis from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia was growing. But most tangibly, the ideology of Pan-Turkism was making itself felt. The majority of these Islamist movements nurtured the idea of Azerbaijan’s withdrawal from the USSR, of changing the republic’s name, flag, coat of arms, and anthem. The core of many of them consisted of active participants in anti-Armenian bloody actions in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku…

…The position of official Baku was no less aggressive. In the view of the Baku leadership, there was no need to seek ways of reconciliation between the two peoples. Everything was clear already. The Armenian “filth” in the NKAO was to be eradicated only by force—and the sooner, the better. It was regrettable, they said, that Moscow was delaying, tying their hands, restraining the planned operations, which in fact meant the forcible expulsion of Armenians from the republic’s territory.

In conversations with representatives of the Azerbaijani leadership, it was striking that they openly pinned their hopes for a decisive resolution of many important issues concerning Karabakh on the imminent arrival in Baku of the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Colonel-General Gromov, Polyanichko’s comrade-in-arms from Afghanistan. I knew that Boris Vsevolodovich, who had recently joined the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and become its curator of the Karabakh problem, was due in those days to fly to Stepanakert and then to visit Baku. At that time, I had no doubt that Colonel-General Gromov’s personal impressions from visiting the NKAO would only reinforce the fairly objective understanding of the Karabakh problems that had already formed within the ministry.

Gromov, at Polyanichko’s insistence, shortened his stay in the NKAO. He did not wait for the arrival of materials from Moscow that objectively revealed the state of the conflict in Karabakh and the serious claims against Baku. What was especially important was that these documents represented the ministry’s position on resolving the interethnic conflict through lawful measures capable of stabilizing and normalizing the situation in Karabakh. I am convinced that the absence of these materials in the hands of the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR played a fatal role in shaping his own views during his meeting on April 16, 1991, with Mutalibov and other Azerbaijani leaders. At that time, Colonel-General Gromov supported the proposal to carry out Operation “Ring”—in reality, the forced deportation of tens of thousands of people from the Armenian villages of Getashen and Martunashen in Khanlar district, the residents of the entire former Shaumyan district of Azerbaijan, as well as the Hadrut district and five Armenian villages in the Shushi district of the NKAO. It seems that the Azerbaijani leadership, and Polyanichko personally, managed to impress General Gromov so deeply that he came to believe in the legitimacy of applying terrorist methods against Armenians—citizens of his own country. Upon returning to Moscow, Colonel-General Gromov assumed leadership of this unprecedented “preventive” operation against the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh, remarkable for its scale, brutality, and “Afghanized” content. Justifying his actions, in one of his interviews at the time he even went so far as to threaten to “surround Karabakh with a Berlin Wall.”

…Upon my return to Moscow, I learned that Mutalibov had agreed with the country’s political and military leadership on the plan to conduct a large-scale Operation “Ring,” ostensibly to confiscate illegally held weapons from the Armenian population of the NKAO and adjacent districts. Without delay, and with the support of our Directorate Chief, General Voronov, I prepared and, in accordance with established practice, transmitted through the minister’s advisor Colonel Kuznetsov a memorandum to B.K. Pugo himself. In it, I outlined a forecast of developments in Karabakh in the near future, pointing to the Azerbaijani leadership’s intention, during Operation “Ring,” to implement a long-nurtured and secretly devised plan: to begin, with Moscow’s support, the deportation of the Armenian population. All the data indicated that the first victims would be the residents of the former Shaumyan district and the nearby villages of Getashen and Martunashen in Khanlar district. The memorandum contained demographic data on the Armenian villages, including gender and age composition. It also offered proposals to prevent the anti-Armenian action, which, if carried out, would have unpredictable consequences.

… I was deliberately removed not only from participation in Operation “Ring,” but also from my official duties altogether, so that I would not interfere with its execution—and so that I would remain under certain control. This meant that something truly major was being planned in Karabakh, far beyond an ordinary preventive inspection. Could the deportation plan really be implemented? But that would be monstrous. Had I foreseen the events? What would happen to the people? What would be the scale of the coming tragedy? …

As ordered, on the morning of April 29 I flew out of Moscow. But not directly to Sochi—first to Rostov-on-Don. From there I telephoned Stepanakert, now speaking to the head of the Stepanakert city department, Police Major Mavren Grigoryan. I congratulated him on the May holidays, and through him extended greetings to all our mutual acquaintances. He was very surprised at the change in my plans, since he had already been expecting me in Karabakh. His voice betrayed no tension. I wished him good luck, advised him to recall our New Year’s photograph, and to take care of himself. I hoped that Mavren would become alert and grasp what I was hinting at. I wanted him to remember not only the photograph, but also our conversation on the morning of January 1, 1991. At that time, together with a group of our officers, we had decided to take a commemorative photograph, and I told him that the Azerbaijani leadership had a plan for the deportation of Armenian residents from the Shaumyan district. I handed him two photocopies of the plan and deportation route approved by Mutalibov.

…On May 5, I learned from broadcasts of All-Union Radio that Operation “Ring” had begun. A terrible ring, tightening around the Armenian territory of Karabakh by units of the Soviet Army, internal troops, and Azerbaijani OMON forces, began to constrict. That was it—it was deportation.

From the sparse reports of correspondents of the “Mayak” radio station, I imagined its scale. It began, just as I had anticipated, in the territory that in 1923 had been severed by Azerbaijan not only from Karabakh but also separated from Shaumyan. According to my data, in the villages of Getashen and Martunashen in Khanlar district of Azerbaijan, located adjacent to Shaumyan district, lived three and a half thousand Armenians. They endured the hardships of daily and relentless Azerbaijani terror with resilience, refusing to abandon their homes, although the Armenian population of the district center of Khanlar and other villages had already been forced to leave during the pogroms of November 1988, and from the villages of Azat and Kamo on March 8, 1990.

This time, as I learned after my troubled stay in Sochi, the Azerbaijani leadership did not even bother to wait for full approval of the operation plan from Moscow. On April 21, internal troops were withdrawn from Getashen and Martunashen, after which Azerbaijani OMON launched a direct assault on Getashen. The attack was repelled by the village self-defense detachment. On April 29, these villages were subjected to massive artillery bombardment. On April 30, units of the 23rd Motor Rifle Division of the Soviet Army entered them to carry out the deportation of the population. Azerbaijani OMON and police shamelessly engaged in killings, violence, and looting.

From April 16, electricity supply to Shaumyan district was cut off, and telephone connections were severed. On April 21, at Baku’s demand, USSR Defense Minister Yazov prohibited regular helicopter flights to Shaumyan from Yerevan’s Erebuni airport. The first villages marked for deportation were Buzulukh, Manashid, and Erkej. I recalled the data from my report to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs: 1,860 people were subjected to discrimination, including 560 pensioners and 450 children. Five children had been born in that very year—1991. The majority of residents were women. As a result of armed assault, 18 people were killed, mostly elderly. Next came the village of Verishen, with 5,000 inhabitants. As later recounted by Russian People’s Deputy Anatoly Shabad, against the residents of Verishen were used combat helicopters, artillery, and heavy machine guns mounted on BMPs and APCs of the 4th Army. Fire was directed at the outskirts and houses. Three shells exploded in the center of the village. Residents and refugees from previously deported Armenian villages were terrorized to such an extent that they began leaving their homes themselves.

During Operation “Ring,” 26 Armenian villages in Shaumyan, Hadrut, and Shushi districts, located in the south and west of the NKAO, were subjected to severe military pressure, lawlessness, and looting by Azerbaijanis. Nearly ten thousand people were deported, more than one hundred were killed. Over six hundred men were taken hostage, tortured, and abused. Following the military forces, groups of Azerbaijanis from nearby settlements broke into the villages. They confiscated houses, vehicles, livestock, and other personal property, brought in trucks, and carried away the plunder. The complaints and appeals of Armenian residents were ignored.

Armenians were deported to nowhere. No one awaited them anywhere. In Stepanakert and Yerevan, there was naturally no schedule for the expulsion of compatriots from their native places. Nor was it part of Baku’s plans. Gorbachev showed no concern for the fate of thousands of citizens of his own state. Mutalibov and Polyanichko held sway.

The deported Armenians were transported by helicopter, but not directly to Armenia—though the range of the aircraft allowed it—but first to Stepanakert. This was done deliberately. The Azerbaijani leadership needed to demoralize the Karabakh Armenians: to show them exhausted and frightened children, women, and elderly, to demonstrate who was master in the house and by whose hands Operation “Ring” was being carried out.

That was it. The giant machine was set in motion. The state, recklessly and inhumanely, rose in full force against its defenseless citizens. To serve the deceitful leadership of one national republic, an entire people was handed over to desecration.

… V. Krivopuskov. Rebellious Karabakh. From the Diary of a USSR MVD Officer. 2nd edition. Moscow, 2007, pp. 200–201. 740

Yuri Barsegov “Nagorno-Karabakh in International Law and Global Politics”

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