On the night of February 25-26, 1992, the Armenian terrorist and separatist bands of so-called "Artsakh" with the participation of the 366th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the United CIS forces deployed in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan (in fact - Russian military and ethnic Armenians in this unit) killed 613 people in the Karabakh town of Khojaly. Mostly children, women and the elderly.

The Khojaly genocide was a point of no return in the Karabakh conflict. It was perpetrated with emphasized cruelty to intimidate and accelerate the expulsion of the peaceful Azerbaijani population from their homeland.

One of the direct organizers of the Khojaly genocide, Serzh Sargsyan, who later became president of Armenia, confessed in 2000: "Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were just joking with us. Azerbaijanis thought that Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the peaceful population. We had to change all that".

Today, 30 years after the genocide of the Azerbaijani civilian population of Khojaly by Armenian fighters, "under cover" of Russian army units, the attention of the world is once again focused on the zone of potential "big war" and the very possible death of civilians. We are talking about the situation around Ukraine.

Here, the situation escalated sharply after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the "independence" of the separatist DPR and LPR in eastern Ukraine on the night of February 21-22, 2022. Immediately afterwards, "treaties of mutual assistance", including military assistance, were signed with the separatists. On February 22, 2022, Russian troops had already officially entered the separatist-controlled Ukrainian Donbass, and the Russian Federation Council gave permission to use Russian troops outside the country. That is, on Ukrainian territory.

How the situation will develop further is not clear, but a "big war" is very likely. The same Vladimir Putin has stated that he will recognize the "independence" of the separatists within the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine respectively. Although at the moment the separatists and Russian occupying forces do not really control more than a third of each of these two Ukrainian regions.

This means that it is quite possible that military action will unfold in densely populated areas (well, for example, for control of territory that the separatists consider "theirs"). Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa and other cities are under threat of attack. This is fraught with huge civilian casualties, which, unfortunately, the politicians fomenting the war do not seem to care about.

Therefore, today it is important not only for Azerbaijan, but for the whole humanity to remember the tragedy of Khojaly, which marked the beginning of ethno-cleansing in the post-Soviet space with the use of the same Russian regular army. After all, only a short time after the genocide will pass and the separatists and Armenian militants carried out a similar genocide of the Georgian population with the help of the regular Russian army in 1992-1993.  Abkhazia in Gagra and Sukhumi.

In fact, in 2014, at the instigation of the same Armenian lobby, a fratricidal war was in fact organized between Ukraine and Russia in Donbass to create, once again, precedents for redrawing borders along the lines of the so-called "Artsakh" between Ukraine and Russia. In almost eight years, according to some estimates, between 50,000 and 100,000 people have already died on both sides, and millions have become refugees. But now it is possible that the tragedy will be repeated on an even larger scale. After all, the war will officially involve not PMCs and mercenaries, but the regular Russian army. Just as it participated to "protect" the separatists in 2008 in Georgia.

Based on experts' assessments, most of Ukraine's territory, especially major cities, is under threat. In order to establish further separatist "republics", irresponsible Russian politicians are ready to launch massive strikes against them, followed by the deployment of troops. And they are instigated by the Armenian lobby, which promotes separatism everywhere and whose representatives - Simonyan, Bangdasarov, Gabrilyanov and others - are doing everything to ignite a war in Ukraine with the participation of the Russian army.

People in Ukraine are alarmed, many are fleeing the country and major cities. Some ask the question: when was the first precedent of using the military against civilians to "protect" separatists in the former Soviet Union? And, unfortunately, few people know that the first precedent was the genocide in Khojaly. Although many remember August 2008 in Georgia, which was also caused by separatism.

One should also remember bloody ethnic cleansing of Abkhazia in 1992-1993 carried out "after Khojaly templates". With the support of the Russian army, the separatists and the same Armenian fighters (including those who took part in the genocide in Khojaly) killed tens of thousands and expelled over 300,000 Georgians from Abkhazia. Sadly, one of these murderers, Mikhail Avagyan, still has a monument erected by local Armenian nationalists and separatists on Georgian soil in the Akhalkalaki district.

International condemnation of the genocide in Khojaly, in light of the current geopolitical situation, is simply necessary. Strictness is also needed towards the torturers of civilians, who must be brought to justice. This should cool the minds of those who are now planning large-scale provocations of ethnic cleansing and redrawing of borders. Those who would commit massacres of civilians.

It should be particularly noted that Khojaly Azerbaijani civilians - women, elderly people and children - were killed by Armenian "Artsakh" separatists and terrorists, but the "military cover" for them was provided by Russian soldiers of the 366th motorized rifle regiment stationed at the time in Karabakh, Azerbaijan. Nowadays, the decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine under the pretext of protecting the separatists in the DNR and LNR has been legislated by the upper house of the Russian parliament.

Precisely in the face of new possible tragedies, in the same Ukraine, the world community must unanimously condemn the genocide of the peaceful Azerbaijani population of Khojaly and raise the question of searching and punishing the organizers of the genocide. Especially since many of the initiators are alive and have openly confessed to their crimes, such as the aforementioned former president of the Republic of Armenia and his predecessor in that position, Robert Kocharian.

Kavkazplus