February 26 is one of the most tragic dates in the history of Azerbaijan. On this day in 1992, Armenian nationalists, with the support of mercenaries, captured the city of Khojaly, where they massacred Azerbaijanis, killing 613 people, including 106 women and 63 children, and capturing 1,275 Khojaly residents. Another 150 went missing and 5,379 citizens were expelled.
The Role of the Khojaly Tragedy in the Karabakh War
The Karabakh war, unleashed by Armenia against Azerbaijan with the aim of occupying Azerbaijani territories in Karabakh and East Zangezur, has an official end date - on the night of November 9-10, 2020, when Yerevan capitulated due to the defeat of the Armenian occupation forces - but there is no official start date. The Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia, having restored their independence at the very beginning of the 90s, did not declare war on each other within the framework of the international diplomatic protocol.
The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict continued at least from the turn of 1987-1988, when ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijani population began in the city of Kapan (Armenian SSR), during the two years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, hostilities were conducted both in Karabakh and on the border of the two republics, therefore, there was no point in observing the protocol: the countries were de facto at war, while still being parts of a single state.
Perhaps, Azerbaijan should consider December 1, 1989 as the date of the declaration of war by Armenia, when the Supreme Council of the ArmSSR adopted an illegal resolution on the inclusion of Karabakh, the territory of the AzSSR, into Armenia. Perhaps, this date is September 2, 1991. On this day, the Karabakh separatists illegally declared their "independence", or this date is November 20, 1991, when a helicopter with all the key negotiators in the government of Ayaz Mutalibov was shot down near the village of Garakend, which thwarted an attempt to resolve the Armenian- Azerbaijani conflict at its very beginning.
All these events undoubtedly contributed to the escalation of violence. However, in the South Caucasus' history there is an exact date of the day when the Karabakh war became a campaign for the seizure of territories and ethnic cleansing done by Armenia and Azerbaijan's struggle for territorial integrity. The day of the beginning of this war as a life-and-death confrontation between occupation and sovereignty was February 26, 1992, the day of the massacres of Azerbaijanis in the city of Khojaly.
Tragedy in Khojaly
For the history of Azerbaijan, which restored independence, the Khojaly genocide became the biggest tragedy of the Karabakh war, and for the history of the Karabakh war itself, it was the most serious war crime. In Khojaly the Armenian militants showed that they were ready to destroy the entire local Azerbaijani population for the sake of capturing Karabakh.
During the city's capture on the night of February 26, 1992, illegal armed groups of Armenian nationalists, with the support of mercenaries, killed 613 Khojaly residents, among them 106 women and 63 children, 8 families were completely killed. 1275 people were taken prisoner by militants, and 150 were missing, including 68 women and 26 children. Another 5,379 townspeople were expelled from their homes, with 487 injured while leaving Khojaly.
Killers of Khojaly
The organizers of the massacres of Azerbaijanis in Khojaly are well known and remain part of the Armenian political elites to this day. The idea of urban genocide belongs to Serzh Sargsyan, who then called himself the "Chairman of the Defense Committee" of the Karabakh separatists, later he became the third president of Armenia, who ruled the republic in 2008-2018 and lost power only as a result of the "Velvet Revolution".
The plan to capture the city was developed by the commander of the 2nd battalion of the 366th motorized rifle regiment of the CIS Joint Forces, Major Seyran Ohanyan, who served as Defense Minister during Sargsyan's presidency. Now Sargsyan is in the shade, but his interests in the Armenian parliament are represented by the nationalist bloc "I Have Honor", and Ohanyan heads the parliamentary faction of the nationalist bloc "Armenia" of another ideologist of the Karabakh war, Robert Kocharyan.
In the winter of 1992, Serzh Sargsyan hired a battalion under the command of Seyran Ohanyan, together with the 3rd battalion of the same regiment under the command of Yevgeny Nabokikhin, specifically to attack Khojaly. More than 50 ensigns and officers of the 366th regiment, including the Сhief of staff of the 1st battalion Valery Chitchyan, also participated in the urban genocide.
For the sake of the money offered by the leaders of the Karabakh separatists, the soldiers and officers of the 366th regiment went on a military rebellion and accepted the status of mercenaries. The nationalists needed the support of the military, bought for rubles and dollars, because Khojaly was defended by Azerbaijani troops at that time, and Sargsyan and Kocharyan wanted to demonstrate the superiority of their illegal armed formations.
Battle for Khojaly
Khojaly took the fight, resisted the war criminals who killed the townspeople on the streets and pursued them outside the city, but the forces of the attackers and defenders differed too much due to the participation of mercenaries from the 366th motorized rifle regiment on the side of the aggressors.
The Azerbaijani military made a heroic deed by trying at the cost of their lives to control the killers as long as possible so that people leaving Khojaly had more time, and thanks to this, 5379 townspeople managed to escape. However, the largest war crime of the Karabakh war, a crime against humanity, was nevertheless committed.
Justice for Khojaly
None of the organizers and perpetrators of the massacres of Azerbaijanis in Khojaly has ever been punished for their atrocities. Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan and Seyran Ohanyan continued to wage the Karabakh war, seizing the lands of Azerbaijan, and after the introduction of a ceasefire in 1994, they seized power in Armenia and took a course to delay the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
In the fall of 2020, the new Armenian government, headed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, provoked the resumption of active hostilities, and Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and ended the Karabakh war by defeating the occupation forces, but the authors of the Khojaly Tragedy, even being Pashinyan's enemies, remained free. The military people of the 366th regiment were not punished either.
However, the crimes committed by all these people have no statute of limitations. Therefore, no matter how far the date of February 26, 1992 goes into history, the need to achieve justice for Khojaly does not become less urgent. The mass killings of Azerbaijanis are still required to be properly assessed by the world community and international organizations, and their organizers and perpetrators must be brought before a military tribunal.
Whatever happens in the future, the memory of the Tragedy in Khojaly must be preserved, since it is historical memory that makes it possible to avoid repeatition of the crimes of past decades and preserve humanity. And justice for Khojaly will surely prevail.
