Shusha's liberation symbol of Azerbaijani army's moral, professional superiority - experts
Kyiv and Tbilisi in touch with Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  08 November 2022 - 22:10

Something was happening on the battlefields of Karabakh two years ago that was difficult to believe in the moments following the announcement of the success of this venture. We are discussing the liberation of Shusha, the highest mountain city in the Azerbaijani part of the Lesser Caucasus, as well as the entire Karabakh region. Before, it was thought that taking a city located on a plateau, as if on a cut-off top of a mountain, could only be accomplished by reaching it from below along a single serpentine highway, or by landing a massive landing from the air. Both methods resulted in significant human casualties on the attacking side.

However, the Azerbaijani army, under the personal leadership of  Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President Ilham Aliyev, managed to do the impossible. Taking advantage of the dense forest cover surrounding the nearby lowlands, foothills and the mountain itself, Special Forces soldiers were able to sneak unnoticed to this height and enter the city. Fighting continued for several days, often hand-to-hand, within Shusha itself, and finally, the city was liberated from many years of occupation. Armenians and Azerbaijanis have a common saying that sounds something like this: Whoever owns Shusha owns Karabakh.

On November 8, 2020, President Ilham Aliyev delivered a historic address to the Azerbaijani people at the Alley of Martyrs:

- Dear compatriots, dear brothers and sisters! With a feeling of boundless pride, I declare that the city of Shusha has been liberated from occupation! Our Shusha! Karabakh is ours! I cordially congratulate the entire Azerbaijani people on this occasion! I cordially congratulate all Shusha residents!

Shusha, which has been under occupation for 28 and a half years, has been liberated! Shusha is free now! We are back in Shusha! We have won this historic victory on the battlefield. November 8, 2020, will forever go down in the history of Azerbaijan. This story will live forever. This is the day of our glorious Victory!

You're free, dear Shusha!

We are back, dear Shusha!

We will revive you, dear Shusha!

Our Shusha! Karabakh is ours! Karabakh is Azerbaijan!

Both in those days of November 2020 and in the next two years, many military specialists in different countries did not hide their surprise and admiration for the brilliant operation of the Azerbaijani army to liberate Shusha, and some said that this operation was a subject for studying military science, and its description would certainly get into the relevant textbooks.

What can we say about the significance of what happened back then today? How did the liberation of Shusha affect the end of the Second Karabakh War? By the way, the outcome of that war was the first liberation of the vast majority of occupied territories in the post-Soviet space by a country that had suffered for decades as a result of a neighboring state's separatism and aggression. And this may serve as an example and source of hope for other former Soviet republics suffering from separatism and territorial occupation.

Well-known military analysts from friendly states shared their perspectives on these events with Caliber.Az.

"Lesson one: there are no impregnable fortresses - there is an unwillingness or inability to make sacrifices for the sake of Victory. Political and/or military," Pavlo Lakiychuk, a military expert at the Strategy XXI Centre (Ukraine), began his comment with this.

According to him, it was the liberation of Shusha that finally demonstrated the Azerbaijani Armed Forces' moral and professional superiority over the enemy. The liberation of Shusha marked a watershed moment in the war. And the military victory was transformed into further political and diplomatic dominance.

"The second lesson follows from this: if you are not ready to defend your land with weapons in your hands, this is not your land. And if the ‘great ones of this world’ categorically assert that ‘the restoration of the territorial integrity of the country has no military solution’ and ‘we need to look for diplomatic ways to resolve the conflict’, then at least they are lying - they do not have a diplomatic solution, and they do not want to allow the conflict to be resolved by force. If it were not for Shusha, not for the 44-day war, the situation would have remained the same as it was five, 10, and 15 years ago. ‘Peacekeepers’ from the OSCE Minsk Group would still meet regularly somewhere in a warm and safe place to ‘express deep concern for the thousandth time’," Lakiychuk said.

"The operation to liberate Shusha is, in my opinion, the most classic example of a maneuver war carried out by the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan," said Doctor of Military and Political Sciences Vakhtang Maisaya (Georgia). "I believe it will go down in the textbooks of many military institutions as one of the most successful military operations carried out in the XXI century."

In his opinion, Shusha was actually a gravitational centre during the Second Karabakh War.

"At first, Azerbaijani troops seized the initiative in fighting, and with the capture of Shusha, they reached a strategic space and could liberate the rest of Karabakh, including its administrative centre Khankandi, which later came under the temporary control of Russian peacekeepers. So in the context of this war, I think the significance of Shusha was special. Its liberation became the main geostrategic battle of this war. Without exaggeration. The very outcome of this war was decided with the liberation of Shusha city.

Today marks the second anniversary of the liberation of Shusha and the occupied territories, and I can congratulate the Azerbaijani people on this victory," Maisaya concluded.

Caliber.Az