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Armenian Ambassador to Russia Vardan Toghanyan has expressed resentment over the participation of Russian MPs in the nationwide procession in memory of the victims of the Khojaly events in Baku on Tuesday. As the Ambassador has noted the march had an explicitly anti-Armenian nature and aimed at harming the atmosphere of trust in the region.

“We are completely bewildered by the motives of the [Russian] parliamentarians expressing solidarity to Baku and participating in such actions that appear to be part of propaganda run by the leadership of individual countries,” the Ambassador’s statement is published by Echo Moscow radio station website.
“As previously, we are aimed at building bridges of friendship sincere as well as allied relations and do hope that our Russian partners will proper assessment about the participation of the parliamentarians in the anti-Armenian movement,” the Ambassador is quoted by the source.

To note, among the participants of the march were Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs Irina Rodnina, State Duma members Alexei Zhuravlev, Mikhail Yemelyanov, Oksana Pushkina, Tatyana Tsybizova, Dmitry Savelyev and MP Denis Parfenov.

On February 26, 1992, during the Karabakh war, around 200 to 300 people (according to Human Rights Watch, and 600 according to the version propagated by Azerbaijan) were killed in unknown circumstances near the city of Aghdam. The authorities of Azerbaijan intentionally kept the population in the village for months by force and did not evacuate them in order to use them as human shields later as the village was one of the firing points for shooting at the blockaded Stepanakert (among five others).

The residents of Khojaly, coming out through the humanitarian corridor the self-defense forces of the NKR had left open, freely passed more than 10 km and reached the Aghdam city controlled by the Azerbaijani troops. Later, dead bodies of the villagers were found not far from the positions of Azerbaijani troops. Parliamentary Commission investigating the tragic death of the civilians at Aghdam city was dissolved by the order of Heydar Aliyev, the investigative materials are kept secret.