Over the past 200 years, living under the rule...

09:44:00 26.08.2026

Over the past 200 years, living under the rule of the Russian Empire, the Armenian nation has only suffered. Throughout these two centuries, our national interests have continuously been trampled upon, while Armenian-populated areas have been brutally depopulated of Armenians. One of the biggest and most widespread lies is the claim that we were safe living under the Russian yoke, because history shows us the exact opposite. It shows that under Russian imperial rule, the Armenian population gradually declined and Armenians were periodically subjected to brutal massacres, regardless of what type of government ruled in Moscow. Similar tragedies occurred under Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and the post-Soviet period. All of these systems pursued anti-Armenian policies, because Armenian nationalism and the Armenian national liberation struggle have always been regarded as a threat by the White Turks.

For example, in Tsarist Russia, massacres of Armenians began in Baku in 1905 at the hands of Caucasian Tatars. They later spread to Nakhijevan, Yerevan, Shushi, Gandzak, and other places, continuing until 1906. The Russian imperial authorities often failed—or were unwilling—to stop the violence quickly. Similar massacres and mass violence resumed between 1918 and 1920 in Baku, Shushi, and other locations.

Then, under the Soviet Union, nearly 70 years later, similar massacres against Armenians occurred once again in Sumgait and Baku between 1988 and 1990. During the 1991 Operation Ring, Soviet forces—particularly units of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Internal Troops and the Soviet Army—cooperated with Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs OMON units in carrying out operations against Armenian villages, especially Armenian-populated settlements in the Shahumyan and Getashen regions. And this does not even take into account how the Bolsheviks financed and armed the Kemalists against Armenia, nor how, during the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of young Armenians were sent to the battlefields and into the slaughter of Europe as a result of the policies of the Soviet tyrannical regime—one of the greatest disasters suffered by the Armenian people after the Armenian Genocide.

And, of course, we saw what happened between 2020 and 2023, when Russia, cooperating with Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Israel while pursuing its own geopolitical interests, effectively conspired against Artsakh and, using Armenian traitors, stabbed us in the back. As a result, Artsakh was occupied by the enemy and completely depopulated of Armenians.

All of this has shown that the Kremlin has never been—and cannot be—the true guarantor of our security. With an “ally” like this, who needs an enemy?

By surrendering our independence to any foreign power—especially to an imperial state like Russia—we are only digging our own grave, because without independence there can be neither security nor lasting peace. This is precisely why, for us Armenian nationalists, independence is the supreme value—one that must be preserved at any cost, to the very last drop of blood. We must understand this clearly, because the final collapse of the Russian Empire is very near, and the time has come to break free from the death grip of this treacherous bear—to escape this miserable Russo-Turkish cage.