Azeri soldier filmed shooting at Armenian khachkar in Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - An Azerbaijani soldier has been filmed deliberately shooting at an Armenian khachkar in the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Hadrut, which came under Baku's control during the 44-day war in fall 2020.

In a video published online, the Azeri soldier is seen specifically targeting the monument, while the entire memorial appears to be desecrated with Azerbaijani-language graffiti.

Since the end of hostilities, the Azerbaijanis have razed a number of Armenian heritage sites to the ground, including khachkars, memorials, cemeteries and at least one church.

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.