Many people know about the Chinese protester who, on June 5, 1989...

10:51:00 21.11.2025

Many people know about the Chinese protester who, on June 5, 1989, stood in front of Chinese tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, blocking their advance in defiance of the government’s brutal crackdown. This unknown rebel earned the nickname “Tank Man,” and to this day his image is used and celebrated. However, the world does not know about another “Tank Man” incident that took place about two years after the Tiananmen events. The world does not know because, unfortunately, no video has been preserved, but nonetheless, it is an even more impactful and heroic story.

In the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and living its final months, freedom-loving Armenian nationalists were able to rise up and demonstrate their heroic spirit—organizing demonstrations in Yerevan while forming and preparing combat units for the battlefield. One of these was the Armenian national hero Tatul Krpeyan (who was just an unknown teacher at the time), who, learning that fighting had broken out in Artsakh and that the situation continued to deteriorate, went to Getashen in September 1990—a hotspot in the war initiated by the Azerbaijanis. In March 1991, by direct order from Moscow, Soviet internal troops and Azerbaijani OMON launched the “Ring” operation, regularly shelling the Armenian villages of Shahumyan. Getashen, one of Shahumyan’s main villages, was considered a dangerous area, as numerous Azerbaijani and Soviet forces had approached, who looted, plundered, and massacred the local population. With the armed group he had founded, Krpeyan led the self-defense of the Getashen subregion from September 1990 until May 1991—against Azerbaijani armed forces, the Russian Soviet army, and police units. Tatul Krpeyan and his unit reached the village, fully aware that the incursion of Soviet internal troops and Azerbaijani OMON toward the village would result in massacre and displacement of the population.

On April 30, 1991, the enemy’s armored vehicles began to advance, causing the villagers to panic, not knowing what to do. However, Krpeyan, seeing what was happening, took a desperate but decisive action. He climbed onto one of the tanks that had stopped in the center of the village. Holding a grenade, he threatened to blow up the tank’s crew if the troops did not leave the village. As a result, Krpeyan took hostage the crews of the armored vehicles and tanks, including the Russian commander of the Baku detachment, Colonel Mashkov. Fourteen of the hostages were later exchanged for 27 Armenians held by the enemy. Mashkov eventually gave the order to retreat, and the Soviet troops began to withdraw, while the Azerbaijani OMON did not obey the order. Mashkov personally attempted to negotiate with Tatul, during which, treacherously, Tatul Krpeyan and his close comrades were killed by gunfire.

After that treacherous killing, unfortunately, Shahumyan fell to the enemy, but Krpeyan’s spirit rose up, and his feats are not forgotten. The current treacherous neo-Bolsheviks, who have led the Armenian government and dominated the political arena over the past 30 years, have tried to extinguish this spirit of struggle among us by promoting defeatism and the ideology of surrender, and pursuing policies in line with it. They are, in reality, the antithesis of Tatul Krpeyan and his like, as there is not a single trace of true patriotism within them.

This heroic episode was the beginning of the Artsakh Liberation War, and it shattered the myth that Russians are our strategic “allies,” showing our nation that in the struggle to create and preserve our independence, we must fight not only against Turkish armed forces but against the Russian–Turkish–Zionist alliance, which, after being dormant for a while, became active again about 10 years ago—in 2016. The Russian Federation, like the Soviet Union 40 years ago, is on the verge of collapse, and that is why more than ever we must keep alive the undying memory of our “Tank Man,” Tatul Krpeyan, and those like him, so that in the coming decisive battles, our nation may give birth to new Montes, Leonids, Vardans, and, of course, Tatuls.

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“Why are you afraid of death? I am ready to die for the land, right now. For the land, for the nation. I will never go to Yerevan Airport and say, ‘I handed over Getashen.’ I will die here before I ever do that…” – Tatul Krpeyan

One Nation, One State, One Will

Hail Armenia and Victory!