30 years ago, on April 30, 1991, the Azerbaijani authorities launched the operation Koltso (Ring), which can rightfully be called one of the bloodiest and most inhuman operations on the deportation of peoples from their historical lands. As a result of the operation, in the course of which tanks, combat helicopters and artillery were employed against civilians for the first time, hundreds of Armenian villages in Northern Artsakh, as well as Shahumyan, Hadrut and Shushi regions were devastated and destroyed, tens of thousands of people were deported, hundreds were killed and taken hostages. The fate of many of them remains unknown so far. The operation Koltso transferred the Azerbaijan-Artsakh conflict to a military domain and led to the subsequent full-scale aggression of Azerbaijan against the Republic of Artsakh, which continues up today. To read the full story, check out the article of Public Radio of Armenia.
https://en.armradio.am/2021/04/30/operation-koltso-one-of-the-bloodiest-deportations-artsakh-mfa/
