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"We have not killed a single person. I had not received any report which would say that someone has shot our soldiers. I do not know anything about the ambulance, which remained under the tank. There were no tanks in Baku at all. There were infantry fighting vehicles in Baku," in an interview given to "Lider TV" said Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, who led the operation on the entry of Soviet troops in Baku on 20 January in 1990, reports the Azerbaijani information portal "Haqqin.az".

"Gorbachev invited Kryuchkov, me and Bakatin. He said situation in Baku was very tense, that he had talks on the phone with seconded in Baku Girenko and Primakov, who believe that emergency situation is needed to be declared in Baku urgently as "Azerbaijanis throw the Armenians out of the windows and it fills that a lot of killings are underway."Kryuchkov cheated then, his Deputy Bobkov came instead of him. I was there myself and ended up as a senior in the delegation," says Minister of Defense of the USSR.

According to Yazov, he stated about the emergency situation at 3pm. Departing from the military airport after Chkalov in Moscow, he gave order on direction of every paratrooper regiment. "We announced on the radio about the introduction of the troops into the city, but we failed announcing it on television, as it was blown up. I do not know who did that. But on the radio we asked the people not to go out, as the troops are to be introduced in the city," Yazov tells.

In addition, as "Haqqin.az" noted, it became known that immediately after the statement of the Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan which said that investigations against Abdurahman Vezirov, the late First Secretary of the Communist Party who now lives in Moscow continue, (investigation that is carried out in the frameworks of the events taken place in "20 January") and he is under investigation too, the health status of 87-year-old Vezirov deteriorated sharply. As stated in the article, according to information ambulance was called for Vezirov.

Portal notes that after the events that took place on "20 January" Vezirov fled to Moscow, where he is hiding up to this day. It was after the January events and his escape from Azerbaijan that the ex-President Ayaz Mutalibov immediately took the office of the president and was in power up before his overthrow on March 5, 1992.

As the "Haqqin.az" notes, on January 19, the Azerbaijani former President Ayaz Mutalibov laid flowers at the "Alley of Martyrs" in Baku. Portal recalls that for 20 years Mutalibov has been accuses by the authorities of Azerbaijan of organizing the “intervention of Soviet troops”. He was expelled from the country in 1993 and received the right to return to Baku only in 2012. Earlier criminal cases against Mutalibov were filed in connection with the events of January 1990, as well as the attempts to organizing a coup.
It was during the reign of Mutalibov that ethnic cleansing of Armenians, violence and murder were committed. In 2012, he gave an interview to the Turkish news agency "Ikhlas", where he accused the former Soviet Union and the People's Front of Azerbaijan in the events that took place on January 20. He characterized those events as a crime against humanity, but focused on the events of the 20th of January, when Soviet troops entered Baku to restore order, while it was a week already that the massacres of Armenians continued in the city. As a result of it hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands were driven away from their homes.

Note that on January 13, 1990 in Baku, where there were left less than 35,000 Armenians, a massive pogrom of Armenian population started. Lists of apartments where Armenians lived were prepared beforehand; the rioters were walking with these lists in their hands, in some places they were being supported by the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry officers. Hundreds of people were killed. At the same time, as General Lebed wrote, the Azerbaijani nationalists killed not only Armenians but also Lezghins, Ossetians and Georgians. Moreover, a wave of violence against the Russian population of the country started. Soviet special squad soldier found even a well that was full of corpses of Russians and Armenians.

On January 20 night, 1990, after a week of riots, Soviet troops were introduced to Baku. The Azerbaijani militants fired at the troops, as a result of which 28 Soviet soldiers were killed, another 100 Soviet militants were wounded. The leadership of Azerbaijan declared the Azerbaijani thugs who were killed during the self-defense operation of Armenians as “martyrs.” According to official figures of Azerbaijan, 131 civilians were killed during the events held on the "20th of January."