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Battle of Shusha (1992)
39°45.5′N 46°44.9′E / 39.7583°N 46.7483°E
The Battle of Shusha (Codenamed: Operation Wedding in The Mountains; Armenian: Հարսանիք լեռներում, Harsaniq lernerum; Russian: Свадьба в горах, Svadba v gorakh) (Armenian: Շուշի, Shushi) was the first significant military victory by Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The battle took place in the strategically important mountain town of Shusha on the evening of 8 May 1992, and fighting swiftly concluded the next day after Armenian forces captured it and drove out the defending Azerbaijanis. Armenian military commanders based in Nagorno-Karabakh's capital of Stepanakert had been contemplating capturing the town after Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert from Shusha for half a year had led to hundreds of Armenian civilian casualties and mass destruction in Stepanakert.
The capture of the town proved decisive. Shusha was the most important military stronghold that Azerbaijan held in Nagorno-Karabakh – its loss marked a turning point in the war, and led to a series of military victories by Armenian forces in the course of the conflict.
In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over sixty years within the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR, though with a majority Armenian population. Following its government's decision to secede from Azerbaijan and re-unify with Armenia, the conflict erupted into a larger scale ethnic feud between Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azerbaijanis vied to take control of Karabakh with full-scale battles in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning, government.
The advanced weaponry of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, fighter jets and helicopter gunships deployed by both sides marked the moment of all-out war. Large-scale population movements began as well, with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan fleeing to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia to Azerbaijan. The battle was preceded by the controversial capture of the town and site of Nagorno-Karabakh's only airport in Khojaly by Armenians in February 1992. With the loss of Khojaly, Azerbaijani commanders concentrated the rest of their efforts on Stepanakert, overlooked by Shusha.
On 26 January 1992 Azerbaijani forces stationed in Shusha encircled and attacked the nearby Armenian village of Karintak (located on the way from Shusha to Stepanakert) attempting to capture it. This operation was conducted by Azerbaijan's then defence minister Tajedin Mekhtiev and was meant to prepare the ground for a future attack on Stepanakert. The operation failed amid strenuous resistance put up by villagers and the Armenian fighters. Mekhtiev was ambushed and up to seventy Azerbaijani soldiers died. After this debacle, Mekhtiev left Shusha and was fired as defence minister. The Armenians to date celebrate the self-defence of Karintak as one of their early and most decisive victories.
Shusha sits on a mountaintop overlooking the NKR's highly populated capital, Stepanakert (just 5 km away), from an elevation of 600m. An old fortress with high walls, the town is five kilometers (four miles) to the south of Stepanakert and perched on a mountaintop with limited vehicular access. From a geographical standpoint Shusha was well-suited for the Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert. The main kind of artillery used in the bombardment, which began on 10 January 1992, was the Soviet-made BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, capable of firing 40 rockets in one volley. The BM-21, the descendant of the World War II-era Katyusha, lacked a precision guided missile system. Dubbed the "flying telephone poles" due to their long, shaped charges, the rockets caused devastating damage to buildings over the course of the siege, hitting residential houses, schools, the city's silk factory, and maternity hospital.
Once the region's Communist Party headquarters and largest city with a population of 70,000, the fighting and shelling had driven away nearly 20,000 of Stepanakert's residents and forced the remainder to live underground in basements. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day. By early 1992 the bombing intensified. In a course of a week 1,000 shells (800 of which were reactive) fell on the city. On 23 February, ten servicemen in the Russian-led CIS 366th Motorized Rifle Regiment (part of the 23rd Motor Rifle Division, 4th Army), headquartered in Stepanakert and tasked with maintaining peace between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis, were injured and one killed.
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Battle of Shusha (1992)
39°45.5′N 46°44.9′E / 39.7583°N 46.7483°E
The Battle of Shusha (Codenamed: Operation Wedding in The Mountains; Armenian: Հարսանիք լեռներում, Harsaniq lernerum; Russian: Свадьба в горах, Svadba v gorakh) (Armenian: Շուշի, Shushi) was the first significant military victory by Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The battle took place in the strategically important mountain town of Shusha on the evening of 8 May 1992, and fighting swiftly concluded the next day after Armenian forces captured it and drove out the defending Azerbaijanis. Armenian military commanders based in Nagorno-Karabakh's capital of Stepanakert had been contemplating capturing the town after Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert from Shusha for half a year had led to hundreds of Armenian civilian casualties and mass destruction in Stepanakert.
The capture of the town proved decisive. Shusha was the most important military stronghold that Azerbaijan held in Nagorno-Karabakh – its loss marked a turning point in the war, and led to a series of military victories by Armenian forces in the course of the conflict.
In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over sixty years within the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR, though with a majority Armenian population. Following its government's decision to secede from Azerbaijan and re-unify with Armenia, the conflict erupted into a larger scale ethnic feud between Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azerbaijanis vied to take control of Karabakh with full-scale battles in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning, government.
The advanced weaponry of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, fighter jets and helicopter gunships deployed by both sides marked the moment of all-out war. Large-scale population movements began as well, with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan fleeing to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia to Azerbaijan. The battle was preceded by the controversial capture of the town and site of Nagorno-Karabakh's only airport in Khojaly by Armenians in February 1992. With the loss of Khojaly, Azerbaijani commanders concentrated the rest of their efforts on Stepanakert, overlooked by Shusha.
On 26 January 1992 Azerbaijani forces stationed in Shusha encircled and attacked the nearby Armenian village of Karintak (located on the way from Shusha to Stepanakert) attempting to capture it. This operation was conducted by Azerbaijan's then defence minister Tajedin Mekhtiev and was meant to prepare the ground for a future attack on Stepanakert. The operation failed amid strenuous resistance put up by villagers and the Armenian fighters. Mekhtiev was ambushed and up to seventy Azerbaijani soldiers died. After this debacle, Mekhtiev left Shusha and was fired as defence minister. The Armenians to date celebrate the self-defence of Karintak as one of their early and most decisive victories.
Shusha sits on a mountaintop overlooking the NKR's highly populated capital, Stepanakert (just 5 km away), from an elevation of 600m. An old fortress with high walls, the town is five kilometers (four miles) to the south of Stepanakert and perched on a mountaintop with limited vehicular access. From a geographical standpoint Shusha was well-suited for the Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert. The main kind of artillery used in the bombardment, which began on 10 January 1992, was the Soviet-made BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, capable of firing 40 rockets in one volley. The BM-21, the descendant of the World War II-era Katyusha, lacked a precision guided missile system. Dubbed the "flying telephone poles" due to their long, shaped charges, the rockets caused devastating damage to buildings over the course of the siege, hitting residential houses, schools, the city's silk factory, and maternity hospital.
Once the region's Communist Party headquarters and largest city with a population of 70,000, the fighting and shelling had driven away nearly 20,000 of Stepanakert's residents and forced the remainder to live underground in basements. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day. By early 1992 the bombing intensified. In a course of a week 1,000 shells (800 of which were reactive) fell on the city. On 23 February, ten servicemen in the Russian-led CIS 366th Motorized Rifle Regiment (part of the 23rd Motor Rifle Division, 4th Army), headquartered in Stepanakert and tasked with maintaining peace between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis, were injured and one killed.