Russia makes Baku explain desecration of Patriotic War monument in Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan has provided explanations to Russia over the desecration of a monument to the fallen heroes of the Great Patriotic War in an Armenian village in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has come under Azerbaijan's control after the recent 44-day war, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said Thursday, February 11.

Social media users have been spreading footage depicting the desecration of the monument in the village of Avetaranots of Askeran region on the territory of the St. Gayane Armenian monastery.

"Our principled position on the desecration of monuments is well known. Any desecration of monuments is unacceptable․ When it comes to monuments to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, there can be no other position," Zakharova said.

"We contacted our Azerbaijani colleagues. They assured us that acts of vandalism, destruction of cemeteries and monuments erected to the soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War have been registered from the Azerbaijani side."

According to her, an investigation is underway to identify such cases.

During the recent military hostilities, Azerbaijani forces launched two targeted attacks on the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi. After taking control of the city, they destroyed the domes of Saint John the Baptist Church. Azerbaijan earlier "restored" a church by replacing its Armenian inscription with glass art.

Concerns about the preservation of cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh are made all the more urgent by the Azerbaijani government’s history of systemically destroying indigenous Armenian heritage—acts of both warfare and historical revisionism. The Azerbaijani government has secretly destroyed a striking number of cultural and religious artifacts in the late 20th century. Within Nakhichevan alone, a historically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani forces destroyed at least 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (Armenian cross stones) and 22,000 historical tombstones between 1997 and 2006.