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January 20 Tragedy, which brought end of USSR closer - confessions of those who gave order and those who carried it out

20 January 2025 13:32 (UTC +04:00)

The January 20 tragedy in Baku was one of the biggest mistakes of the USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He could have prevented this tragedy by sending Heydar Aliyev to Azerbaijan. The tragedy in Baku was a betrayal of the USSR leadership, and unfortunately, the victims of this betrayal were peaceful Azerbaijanis.

These confessions were made in interviews with APA's special correspondent for Russia Farid Akbarov by Georgiy Pryakhin, a well-known Russian writer and publicist who worked as Mikhail Gorbachev's assistant for humanitarian and public issues in 1990, and Yury Shvytkin, a former officer of the Soviet army who entered Baku on the night of January 19-20, 1990.

Gorbachev's assistant: "The decision to deploy troops to Baku was made collegially"

Georgiy Pryakhin admits that the January 20 tragedy was one of Gorbachev's biggest mistakes, and the tragedy in Baku could not have happened without his permission. According to Pryakhin, if Gorbachev had wanted to, he could have prevented this tragedy:

“I was a living witness to all these processes. The decision to deploy troops to Baku was not made suddenly. This decision was made at the very top of the USSR leadership and this decision was made collegially. When talking about Gorbachev making this decision, they point to the Armenians who were around him. Yes, at that time, there were Georgii Shakhnazarov and Abel Aganbekyan around Gorbachev. You know, Moscow did not want to lose Azerbaijan, which has great energy resources. Gorbachev understood the meaning of this tragedy and what it would lead to. Because under his leadership, he himself bore full responsibility for the decision made by the Politburo. Without his permission, these events could not have happened. A serious military contingent was deployed to Baku.”

Georgiy Pryakhin: “Gorbachev could have prevented this tragedy by sending Heydar Aliyev to Baku”

“I think there was no need to deploy troops to Baku. It was necessary to go to Azerbaijan for negotiations with a large group. This group should have been headed by an influential Azerbaijani. And this influential person was Heydar Aliyev. Gorbachev could have prevented this tragedy by sending Heydar Aliyev to Baku at that time. Unfortunately, he did not take this step. The result is in sight... In general, the removal of Heydar Aliyev from office was a mistake."

The officer of the USSR army who committed the massacres in Baku: “We did not set a goal to kill anyone”

Yury Shvytkin, a reconnaissance officer of the Pskov airborne division that entered Baku as part of the Soviet army, recalls those events as follows: “The situation was very tense. On January 19, we landed at the “Nasosny” airfield. Then we arrived in the center of Baku. A curfew had been imposed there. We were enforcing the curfew. At that time, we did not set a goal to kill anyone. History will judge what happened in Baku at that time. I repeat that the events in Baku took place during the Soviet Union. I would not say that we had bloodlust, no, it was not like that at all. I remember very well that everyone was wearing “camouflage” clothing. We were in airborne uniforms. I was a senior lieutenant at that time. Among the troops deployed to Baku were those who had been drafted into the army from civilian life and given weapons. They were not ready for this event. That is why there was a harsh reaction. We were regular soldiers and we were fulfilling the tasks set before us.”

Yury Shvytkin: “January 20 was a betrayal of the USSR leadership”

Yury Shvytkin, currently deputy chairman of the defense committee in the State Duma, admitted that the January 20 tragedy was a betrayal of the USSR leadership and that the killing of civilians was unacceptable:

"Of course, the killing of civilians is unacceptable. I think that diplomatic efforts were not carried out to the end at that time. We were not only in Baku at that time, but also in Vilnius. These events led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, these events were betrayal. Look, Gorbachev later became an honorary citizen of Germany. But the victims of this betrayal were Azerbaijanis, Lithuanians, Russians. Those who ruled the state at that time had a hand in this betrayal. Yazov (ed. Dmitry Yazov, Former Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union) was a military man, he carried out whatever orders he was given. The main culprit, of course, was Gorbachev..."

PS: No empire lasts forever. Just like every empire, the Soviet Union also came to an end, and this end was brought closer by the January 20 tragedy in Baku. The empire that committed this bloody tragedy has long been in history for Azerbaijanis, and no one and nothing has been forgotten.