ArmInfo.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh published a commentary on the 29th anniversary of the large-scale operation "Ring" on the deportation of the Armenian population of the border villages of Artsakh.
In particular, the report says that the operation was carried out with the direct organization and coordination of the central authorities of the USSR and Azerbaijan, which finally transferred the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict to the military plane, launching the subsequent full-scale aggression of Azerbaijan against the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic).
On April 30, 1991, a massive shelling of Getashen and Martunashen villages of the Shaumyan region launched Operation Ring, during which tanks, combat helicopters, and artillery were used for the first time against civilians. Azerbaijani special police units (OMON), with the support of units of the internal troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Soviet Army, broke into Armenian villages formally supposedly for , but in reality for killing, robbery, terror against the Armenian population with subsequent deportation>, in the source. As a result of military-police actions, dozens of Armenian villages of Northern Artsakh, as well as the Shahumyan, Hadrut and Shusha districts were destroyed, almost ten thousand people were deported, more than 100 were killed, several hundred people were taken hostage. The fate of many of them remains unknown until now.
