Our film presents documentary evidence that the 366th Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment of the 23rd Division of the Soviet Army deployed in Khankendi formerly known as Stepanakert was taken over by Armenian separatists and terrorists, while the Soviet troops both in Baku and Yerevan were still reporting to Moscow. We provide several pieces of evidence – one of them is an article called Evacuation-366 written by a commando officer Viktor Shevchenko and published on March 26, 1992 in the newspaper Sovetskiy Voin—the official paper of the 23rd Division, which hosted Regiment 366. Our freelance reporter in Russia could also reach by phone the former commander of the regiment, Colonel Yuri Zarvigorov.
Fuad Akhundov, political expert: Tragedy in Khojaly hit the country when I was working at the publishing house Azerbaijan, which was one of the largest ones in the Soviet Union. I headed the Information and Analysis Department there. This came as quite a shock, and I remember that very well. We immediately decided to publish a small book. And so we did in the following two or three days. We called the book Khojaly. The Last Day. When we began writing the text and collecting photos for the book, we discovered, quite unexpectedly though, that we had no photos of victims. We all know those famous and unique shots captured by the late Chingiz Mustafayev, a hero of Azerbaijan, who’d pushed himself inside that helicopter to make this possible. But there were no photo reporters at that time. We had no choice but to borrow the video cassette from Chingiz. We then invited a specialist from the AzerTAG Information Agency, who took snapshots from the TV monitor. And the photos of victims of Khojaly later published by AzerTAG were made from the same video footage as well.
Our film presents documentary evidence that the 366th Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment of the 23rd Division of the Soviet Army deployed in Khankendi formerly known as Stepanakert was taken over by Armenian separatists and terrorists, while the Soviet troops both in Baku and Yerevan were still reporting to Moscow. There was no military discipline in the regiment—soldiers starved, became drunkards, got sick and had to sell ammunition, while the weapons of the regiment were used to attack Azerbaijani settlements, kill and expel Azerbaijani civilians from their homes. The bloodiest episode was the Khojaly Genocide, which took place on the night of February 25-26, 1992, when hundreds of civilians were injured, killed and went missing after a raid on the town of Khojaly. Yet there was a group of soldiers from the same regiment, who did not want to get involved in this criminal act, who repeatedly tried to escape, but failed. Some of them got frozen in the mountains; some were killed by Armenian militants…
Here is an article called Evacuation-366 written by a commando officer Viktor Shevchenko and published on March 26, 1992 in the newspaper Советский воин—the official paper of the 23rd Division, which hosted Regiment 366.
Fuad Akhundov, political expert: Bahadur Gayibov, the then director of the publishing house Azerbaijan, received an anonymous envelope with the latest article published in Советский воин; that’s what it said. All other copies of the newspaper had been destroyed by the notorious Armenian general Joseph Ohanian. Apparently, this Russian officer, Viktor Shevchenko, felt insulted as an officer, and he described everything that went on in the regiment, how it was bribed, how a wife of an officer made a fuss about a missing bundle of dollars. Can you imagine the Soviet Union and a sheaf of bills in one of the distant corners of the country, Karabakh; it was something unique in those days. American dollars were a very rare thing even in Baku and other cities of the Union. Shevchenko provided a detailed and honest account of events going on there back then.
Because of this article, Lieutenant General Joseph Ohanian, former Deputy Commander-In-Chief of the Transcaucasian Military District, ordered all the copies of the newspaper issued on March 26 be destroyed. This is a reprint of the only surviving copy. Right after the Khojaly tragedy, this copy was sent to Bahadur Gayibov, who, without hesitation, decided to publish it in the Səhər newspaper.
Gayibov noted that Shevchenko’s article unleashed the true essence of ‘how the CIS troops respected neutrality’.
Shevchenko wrote that, according to numerous eyewitness accounts, including those of the conscript soldiers, all the standard military equipment and often the personnel of the regiment were sort of rented to Armenian gunmen. General Ohanian commanded the withdrawal of the regiment from the Nagono-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. But he did all his best to leave the greater part of weapons and armoured vehicles to his triumphant fellow countrymen.
A quote from Shevchenko’s article: “Brave warriors of the Motorised Rifle Regiment 366 had a lavish feast inside a warehouse used for farm products. Soldiers and officers were crazy drunk and screamed songs having sprawled around campfires. A groggy wife of one of the officers was crying over a bundle of dollars that she could not find. They tried to calm her down, lined up the soldiers, and went through their pockets persuading them to return her money”.
Note that these events took place in Stepanakert back in 1992. A bundle of dollars was an unprecedented sum of money back then, a real fortune! Where did the officer’s wife get it from? After all, those were challenging times when the military personnel would hardly get paid their allowances.
Another quote from the same article: “Before parting with the third battalion of the regiment, Armenians gave them, as a gift, several boxes of cognac, lots of refreshments and fraternal hugs. Hoods of cars were used as regular tables; the ‘sufferers’ were provided with meat for barbecue and other food supplies to enjoy during the night.. What for? Perhaps we could get an answer to this question inside soldiers’ duffle-bags stuffed full of money to be taken back home. Or inside the bulky purses of officers’ wives crammed with sheaf of bills”.
Yet another quote from Shevchenko: “Commandos had no idea that the entire motorised rifle battalion could ‘miss’ the disappearance of its own weapons, brand new equipment and ammunition. Commandos had to wait for five hours until a group of generals led by Ohanian would urgently get ‘a few issues’ settled with the leadership of Stepanakert. During this time, Lieutenant-Colonel Yuri Zarvigorov, commander of the Regiment 366, was with the second battalion. By the time the generals returned, there was not a single combat vehicle or small arms left in the battalion. Also, hundreds of commandos are ready to testify how shamefully the staff of the regiment handed over all its weapons and equipment to [Armenian] militants. The event was presented as an ‘organised withdrawal supervised’ by commandos. Yet it was not a withdrawal, but an evacuation of military personnel with lapsed morals, sense of discipline and military honour. Commandos evacuated by air less than a third of the regiment’s one hundred and fifty armoured vehicles. Eight ultra-modern tanks, about a hundred combat vehicles, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and ammunition, three-quarters of small arms were left to individuals with lapsed virtues.”
Shevchenko then confessed that he did not want to “describe how the weapons were collected from a half-drunk regiment, the behaviour of commanders, as well as his chilly suspicions that were confirmed later thanks to his discoveries”.
Quote: “There is a huge number of outrageous facts that I left beyond the scope of this narrative; As a journalist, I am not at liberty to disclose them. Competent authorities are said to be working with them and have initiated an investigation”.
Unfortunately, there has never been an investigation. The regiment was disbanded and the scandal was hushed up. But the weapons of the ill-fated regiment continued to kill people. To kill Azerbaijani civilians, including children, women, and aged people… Armoured vehicles of the regiment against the completely unarmed civilians. This clearly shows how the Armenians won the First Karabakh War.
In 1985, Regiment 366, which was part of the 23rd Division of the 4th Army of the Soviet Union, was reportedly moved from Ganja to Stepanakert. Incidentally, this happened almost right after Mikhail Gorbachev, who had been heavily lobbied by Armenians during his tenure in Stavropol, became the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. This can hardly be considered a coincidence.
The regiment was supposed to have 1,800 servicemen. In fact, however, there were only 630 people by February 1992. 129 of them were officers and warrant officers, and of this number 49 were ethnic Armenians. We yet to find out whether this number of active personnel was sufficiently effective by classical military standards. But it was quite huge a number back then.
By February 1992, the date of genocide in Khojaly, Azerbaijan’s security institutions were still in their infancy. It were essentially the self-defence units that opposed Armenian militants at that time. In fact, Azerbaijan controlled only Khojaly and Shusha, while the residents of about 50 settlements had already been expelled from their homes. In other words, the Soviet troops deployed in Azerbaijan and Armenia reported to Moscow, but their units stationed in Karabakh, epicentre of the conflict, were gradually slipping into the control of Armenians.
Even a single battalion with standard weapons could radically change the situation in favour of the Armenians. Moreover, Regiment 366 had already been known for its outrageous criminal acts in Soviet times, when in 1990-1991 it shelled peaceful Azerbaijani villages. Khojaly was the most brutal and bloody episode of the period, but not the only one. Thanks to the weapons, armoured vehicles and often the troops of the regiment Armenian military captured not only Khojaly, but also the settlements of Mesheli, Malibeyli, Karkijahan, Garadaghli. And each such capture was accompanied by a massacre of civilian population.
There is ample evidence that the Regiment 366 took an active part in the Khojaly Genocide.
A quote from a report published by the Memorial (Мемориал) Society: “Almost all the refugees from Khojaly confirmed that the members of Regiment 366 took part in the assault on Khojaly, while some of them entered the town.”
On March 11, 1992, authors of an article published in the Krasnaya Zvezda (Красная Звезда) newspaper under the title Карабах: война до победного конца? (Garabagh: War Till Victory?) mumbled in shame: “…Despite the categorical orders of the district military command, some members of the Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment 366 took part in the military operation near Khojaly together with the Armenian residents of Karabakh in the twentieth days of February. There are at least two such cases in record. During the evacuation of the regiment’s personnel, commandos checked several members of the regiment and found large amounts of money, including in foreign currency.”
Fuad Akhundov, political expert: By the way, Shevchenko was not the only decent person. I still remember that a few months before Khojaly, I was watching headline news on a television programme Günün ekranı. Suddenly a host of the programme stopped and said ‘it seems we have guests’. Then a camera in the studio focused on two or three sergeants, soldiers, as they entered the studio. A Russian and a Kazakh guy, I think. They said that they left the Regiment 366 secretly, because they could not tolerate what they witnessed there. They said Armenians were making the officers of the regiment drunk; about 30-40% of the officers were Armenians. This number then reached half of the overall personnel. One of these Armenian officers was Seyran Ohanian, who was a major at the time. Later he became a general in Armenia. So, these Armenian officers were taking away the military equipment operated by these sergeants and soldiers out of the regiment and forced these guys hit peaceful Azerbaijani villages. Again, the Soviet Union was still in effect. Meaning that neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan had their own army. By the way, this military unit was created in 1985, with the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev. We yet to find out whether it was Gorbachev who gave the command. Because as soon as Gorbachev came to power, he tried to get the Politburo adopt a resolution on the 70th anniversary of the alleged Armenian Genocide… It is not a coincidence. In 1985, the regiment was stationed in Karabakh, in Khankendi, which was then called Stepanakert. And when soldiers of the regiment saw this mess, they refused to be part of it and ran away. Their stories match exactly those narrated by Shevchenko. In other words, there was a group of decent members of the regiment who did not want to be associated with bandits. Other members exchanged their honour for dollars. I think that the main culprit was the commander of the regiment Zarvigorov who simply ignored the situation. Apparently, he was also bribed by the Armenian terrorists.
Another Russian journalist, Vadim Belykh, told us a story of four more fugitives from the notorious regiment. It was published in the Известия newspaper on March 14, 1992. A story of soldiers Pavel Zuev, Yuri Yakhnovich, Alexei Bondarev and Pavel Antipin. And again, their statements confirm that the regiment was actually controlled by Armenians during the Soviet period. While the military troops stationed in Baku and Yerevan reported to Moscow, the reality in Karabakh was completely different. Terrorists played an instrumental role there!
The story of Zuev, Yakhnovich, Bondarev and Antipin completely echoes what the soldiers told us in the TV programme: “Before joining the regiment, we studied in a training camp in Samara. Actually, we were supposed to serve in Germany, but those who had health issues were sent to Transcaucasia. They asked us to sign papers to confirm that we had no objections. That’s how it all started… They confiscated our uniforms and gave us shabby replacement packs instead. We had no bread, no salt, no letters from home. We slept on a bare mattress. We could have bath only twice in a year… The whole regiment, both soldiers and senior commanders, suffered from lice. We had sores from their bites, our feet were rotten. Civilians walked freely inside the regiment, offering a local spirit, tutovka, made from mulberries. Since soldiers did not have money to buy it, they agreed with sentries that they would steal cartridges and sell them to pay for drinks. That’s why everybody in the unit was drunk—both soldiers and officers. They constantly fight with each other. You are in a big trouble if you end up in a brig. Relations with locals are complicated. When we attacked Shusha with tanks, everything was fine. Then a group of Armenians approached our checkpoint and shot a Kazakh soldier right in his eye; they wounded another one. Commander of the first battalion has somehow made a deal with a commander of the artillery division to start the withdrawal of equipment and escape from Karabakh on their own. But the commander of the regiment uncovered their plan and took both of them off duty”.
Soldiers who did not want to take part in this mayhem of lawlessness, who did not want to kill Azerbaijani civilians, have tried to escape from the regiment. Not all of them succeeded, though. According to Zuyev, Yakhnovich, Bondarev and Antipin, three to five soldiers escaped everyday.
“We remember two guys who took off. A few days later, we were asked to remove a body found between Khojaly and Askeran. It was Alexander Gorokhov from the artillery division; his companion is still missing. Eleven guys escaped at once. They were reported walking along the road holding a white flag. But they were attacked in Mardakert. Only six of them made it to Aghdam alive. Armenians caught two more fugitives and sold them back to the regiment for 800 litres of diesel fuel. They attacked us too; it was a miracle that we could stay alive. In October, night shifts started in the regiment. But these included only the officers and trusted old members of the team, mainly drivers and mechanics, sometimes gunners. They used BMPs and tanks during the shifts, taking guns with them too. The next morning, they would return drunk, with all the ammunition used. They told us that they first drank with Armenian militants, who then instructed them to fire on Azerbaijani villages…”
There is more evidence that the combat vehicles of the regiment played an instrumental role in storming of Khojaly, providing fire support for the advancing Armenian units…
Unfortunately, the regiment was by no means the only source of weapons for the Armenian militants. As Russian experts later admitted, a major portion of weapons was brought into Armenia from abroad in 1988-1989, after the catastrophic earthquake in Armenia. In fact, the cargo aboard planes with humanitarian aid has never been subject to customs inspection.
Finally, there is another crime committed by Armenian terrorists that provides ample food for thought. On April 8, 1991, a group of Armenian terrorists shot a Russian colonel Vladimir Blakhotin in Rostov-on-Don. He was a Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs deployed in North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. Official investigation report says that the original plan was to kill the former Commandant of Stepanakert, Major-General Alexander Safonov. But the terrorists mistakenly shot Blakhotin.
However, there is a number of circumstances that put this version in doubt. Indeed, Safonov and Blakhotin lived in the same house, but they used different entrances to enter the building. For several days, terrorists had kept an eye on the entrance of the house used by Blakhotin, and timed his movements. One more detail: the colonel was shot point-blank. In this situation, it is impossible to identify a victim wrongly, let alone mistake Safonov’s UAZ for Blakhotin’s Volga. The most puzzling thing is that Blakhotin was indeed responsible for the withdrawal of military property from Karabakh, as a Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Internal troops controlled the roads and certainly were well aware of what was going on ‘on the field’. Therefore, Blakhotin was by all accounts an inconvenient witness.
If Armenia really wants to make a U-turn towards regional peace, it must condemn its war criminals involved in the First Karabakh War. It will be a true evidence of Armenia’s real intention to put an end to its difficult past. Meanwhile, people like Seyran Ohanian, who held high-ranking positions in the Regiment 366 in 1988-1992, or Robert Kocharyan… They are not only free, but they still are involved in politics. Not to mention Serzh Sargsyan, who was a president of Armenia for ten years, who actually admitted his criminal acts that he committed in Khojaly. During his December 2000 interview with British journalist Thomas De Waal, Sargsyan said the following: “Before Khojaly, Azerbaijanis thought that they could make fun of us. They thought that Armenians would not be able to raise a hand against civilian population. We had to destroy that stereotype. That’s exactly what we did”. And these people continue to talk about self-determination of Armenians and dare remind us about the so-called referendum on the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, which was supposedly held on December 10, 1991. But at that point in time, residents of more than 50 Azerbaijani villages in Karabakh were expelled from their homes. Azerbaijanis remained only in Khojaly and Shusha. Nevertheless, these illiterate terrorists continue to claim that they held the referendum. Which, of course, sounds delusional….
Fuad Akhundov, political expert: Perhaps a few of the armoured vehicles that once belonged to Regiment 366 are on display at the Trophies Park in Baku. They were towed here to sort of apologise to our civilians for what they did in Karabakh. I also think that the former residents of Karabakh who were attacked using these vehicles also visit the park. And these vehicles kind of ask for repentance; they will do so forever; they will got rust because of the crimes they committed in the past.
On February 26, 2022, Azerbaijan will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Khojaly Genocide. Parliaments of 16 countries, lawmakers from 24 states of the United States have officially recognised the annihilation of Khojaly as an act of genocide of the Azerbaijani people. This tragedy is ranked with those that took place in Khatyn, Lidice, Oradour… 613 civilians, including 63 children, 106 women, 70 old people were killed in Khojaly. Eight families were exterminated completely; 27 families have only one member surviving.
Our freelance reporter in Russia could reach by phone the former commander of the regiment, Colonel Yuri Zarvigorov. However, we were unable to get an adequate commentary from him.
“Yeah, yeah, we carried piles of money, so much so that we don’t have enough room to stuff it in”.
“Did not we eat dogs there? Didn’t he mention that in his article?”
“Everyone who calls me is an idiot”.
For Zarvigorov, ‘idiots’ are those who contacted him to get his comments on the events related to his former regiment. This means all the persons whose testimonials we presented to you in this film, including Viktor Shevchenko and the Советский воин newspaper, Vadim Belykh and the Известия newspaper, the Красная звезда newspaper… By the way, Советский воин was an official media outlet of the 23d Division, which hosted the Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment 366. It means that Zarvigorov calls his commanders and superior officers idiots. But who is more reliable in this situation—this individual or all the publications that accuse him? The main question to Colonel Zarvigorov is how he could allow such a thing happen—especially the sale and export of equipment later used by Armenian militants against the Azerbaijani population. It is impossible that Commander Zarvigorov had been unaware of this… Otherwise, it is quite obvious who an idiot is… Seriously though Zarvigorov should have certainly faced a military tribunal, which he was helped to avoid.
During our phone conversation with Zarvigorov, he has stubbornly repeated the fact of the regiment’s withdrawal from Stepanakert: “I’m telling you that the withdrawal was a planned operation supervised by two deputy commanders. In a period of political instability in our country… I had to obey commands, to go ahead and attack. There were two deputy commanders responsible for the withdrawal…” But if Shevchenko’s article appeared in the division’s newspaper, it means they knew very well why the regiment was withdrawn almost immediately after the genocide in Khojaly. Because it was not a ‘planned operation’ but an urgent ‘withdrawal’, as Shevchenko says in his article! And those in charge of the operation tried to hide any traces of their crime against humankind, an attempt to save the reputation of their division, the reputation of the CIS military known to be a Soviet army before. Regiment 366 took part in the extermination of civilian population. All individuals involved in these events should be imprisoned.
Nevertheless, Zarvigorov has cynically got surprised when asked about the commandos.
“Commandos? What were they doing there?”
After all, Zarvigorov should have known that in early March 1992 commandos were called to assist with the allegedly ‘planned withdrawal’ of the regiment, because it was actually controlled by Armenian terrorists. In fact, Armenians prevented the withdrawal of military equipment, which they believed belonged to them. This is a fact Viktor Shevchenko describes in his article too. Please note the dates. It happened just a few days after the massacre of civilians in Khojaly. There was little that even the commandos could do about. That is why Russian central TV channels showed how commandos destroyed the tanks of the regiment to prevent them from falling into the hands of Armenian terrorists. But those were just a few symbolic acts to save the reputation of the former Soviet army. Most of the equipment remained with Armenians anyway…
“The assault began on the night of February 25-26… Armenians were supported by armoured vehicles of Regiment 366 of the Soviet Army. They surrounded Khojaly from three sides. Then Armenian soldiers entered the town and suppressed the resistance of the defenders.
“After this shameful role in the capture of Khojaly, the regiment received an order from Moscow to withdraw from Karabakh”.
Thomas de Waal, British journalist
“Commander of the second battalion, almost all the officers, as well as all the warrant officers in the battalion were Armenians. That night they gathered all the Armenian soldiers in the regiment, as well as several volunteers of other nationalities, and by prior agreement with leaders of the Artsakh National Liberation Army launched a joint assault on Khojaly”.
Yuri Girchenko, 97th Separate Engineer Battalion based in Aghdam in early 1992
“From time to time, they bring to Aghdam the corpses of people exchanged for live hostages. But you will never see a similar scene even in your scariest nightmare: eyes of victims had been gouged out, ears cut off, heads scalped and chopped off… No limit to mockery”.
Vadim Belykh, Izvestia
“The scene that I saw out of the [helicopter’s] sideport was unbelievably shocking and frightening. There were dead people lying on the yellow grass covering the foothills with scattered patches of melting greyish snow and remnants of snowdrifts. The entire area, as far as I could see, was littered with corpses of women, old people, boys and girls of all ages, from infants to teenagers…”
Russian TV reporter Yuri Romanov together with Azerbaijani journalist Chingiz Mustafayev, who was the first to visit the site of the tragedy.
