Key Facts
- Date
- May 1991
- Villages affected (Shahumyan)
- 24 Armenian villages forcibly depopulated
- Villages affected (Shusha/Hadrut)
- 17 Armenian villages forcibly removed
- Official pretext
- Passport checking and disarming illegal armed formations
- Forces involved
- Soviet Army, MVD Internal Troops, AzSSR OMON
Strategic Narrative Overview
In May 1991, Soviet Army units, MVD Internal Troops, and Azerbaijani OMON entered the Khanlar and Shahumyan districts as well as parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, deploying ground troops, armored vehicles, artillery, and helicopter gunships. Rather than simply disarming fighters, forces systematically expelled Armenian populations from 24 villages in Shahumyan and later 17 villages in the Shusha and Hadrut regions. Border villages in the Armenian SSR were also raided.
01 / The Origins
As the Soviet Union weakened in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ethnic tensions between Armenians and Azerbaijanis over the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast intensified. Armenian irregular fighters operated in and around the enclave, and the Soviet central government, alongside Azerbaijani republican authorities, sought to suppress these formations and reassert control over disputed territories amid the broader collapse of Soviet authority.
03 / The Outcome
The operation resulted in the forced displacement of Armenians from dozens of villages across northern Azerbaijan and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh. Journalist Thomas de Waal characterized it as the Soviet Union's only civil war and the beginning of open armed conflict in the Karabakh dispute. The operation was accompanied by widespread human rights abuses and has been described by some authors as ethnic cleansing, accelerating the full-scale war that followed the Soviet collapse.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
2 belligerents
Side B
2 belligerents