Ethnic cleansing in Khojali in 1992 – vengeful cruelty or cold-blooded act?

Abstract

The text concerns a case study of an act of extreme violence in the war between Armenia and Azerbaydzhan in the Nagorno Karabakh region in 1992 – the massacre in Khodjaly. The act of violence is documented very well by independent sources, but the motives of the massacre remain unknown and the opinions on this issue remain controversial. The authors analyze the strategic reasons for the storming of Khodjaly by the Armenian armed units on the night of 25-th – 26-th February 1992 and propose a hypothesis on the possible reason for the massacre of the civic population of Khodjali.