On December 24, 2012, the US Central Intelligence Agency’s analytical bulletin is declassified. The document deals with national and territorial conflicts in the USSR.

The secret document does not indicate the date and month of writing, but from the content it can be concluded that it was written in the second half of 1990, since the document mentions events in June 1990.

The document talks about the territorial disputes between the republics of the USSR, ethnic conflicts, as well as the historical demands of the borders between the republics.

In this context, the territorial problems of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Crimea are mentioned. Special emphasis is placed on the impact these conflicts can have on US foreign policy, as well as on the stability of the USSR. It is noteworthy that the conflict in Artsakh is specially mentioned and it is emphasized that it is the only real inter-republic war over Armenia, Azerbaijan and Artsakh on the territory of the USSR at the moment.

In 1990, the Artsakh conflict already turned into armed clashes. At the beginning of the year, massacres of Armenians took place in Baku. Self-defense and volunteer squads were formed in Artsakh, armed clashes took place in different regions of Artsakh. Attacks by Azerbaijanis took place in the direction of Akna and Martuni. It was clear that full-scale war was inevitable.

Returning to the secret document, we should note that it has the following heading: «Types of disputes. Fifty Ways to Leave a Loved One», and the subtitle.

«Border and territorial disputes between and within Soviet republics fall into one or both of two general categories»:

Below we present only those parts of the declassified document that refer to the Artsakh issue and Armenia.

“In some cases, these “islands” are composed of such ethnic groups that have their national republic in another place. Sometimes these groups have local administrative units, for example, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, but more often they do not, for example, the Russians living throughout the territory of the USSR.”

“Among the inter-republican territorial conflicts, the only one that is currently in actual progress is the dispute over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

“Ethnic groups that want to unify the territory they inhabit or control to the republic of their same nationality. for example, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh or some Russians living in Ukraine, Estonia and Kazakhstan. Although only Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians receive support from their republic, other groups also continue to be a destabilizing factor in the political life of the republics.

“These demands, which often preceded or resulted from ethnic violence, are unlikely to disappear without some compromises by the governments of the republics. They are largely the result of the often arbitrary and discriminatory national policies of the Stalinist era, in which some small nations were handed over to the rule of their historical adversaries, while others were given administrative control over disproportionately large areas.

As a result, accumulated grievances, often deepened by historical animosities, have created a situation in a number of republics, notably Moldova and Georgia, where small ethnic groups claim they cannot receive fair treatment while under the control of the republic’s authorities. Many of these groups have stated that if the respective republics try to leave the USSR, they will try to separate from those republics. (See: THE TYPES OF DISPUTES: FIFTY WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER):

The secret document presents what national-territorial problems and conflicts existed between the republics of the USSR in 1990. In this context, the issue of Artsakh is specifically mentioned and it is emphasized that a large-scale war is inevitable in the near future.

It is interesting that the document mentions that the only option for solving such conflicts is political compromise.

In 2020 and 2023, it became clear that the RA authorities of that period and the present chose the above-mentioned version of the destruction of Artsakh.

Z. I hesitated

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