Twenty-sixth Anniversary of Garakend Tragedy

Baku / 20.11.17 / Turan: November 20 marks the 26th anniversary of the death of high-ranking statesmen in a Mi-8 helicopter, shot down by Armenian armed groups in the sky over the village of Garakend of the Khojavend region. All 22 people aboard the helicopter perished, including high-ranking officials of the Azerbaijani state, journalists, and members of the Russian-Kazakh peacekeeping mission. The circumstances of this crime have not been fully disclosed. The flight recorders were taken to Moscow, but they were not deciphered.

After the destruction of the Mi-8, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh grew even more and turned into military actions. Armenian armed forces using military equipment and personnel of the Soviet Army units began seizing Azerbaijani settlements and driving out the local Azerbaijani population.

Those Who Lost Their Lives in the Mi-8 Helicopter:

Tofig Ismayilov - Secretary of State

Ismet Gayibov - Prosecutor General

Muhammad Asadov - Minister of Internal Affairs

Zulfi Hajiyev - Deputy Prime Minister

Vagif Jafarov - MP

Veli Mammadov - MP

Osman Mirzoyev - head of the presidential press service

Gurban Namazaliyev - Deputy Minister

Igor Plavsky - Prosecutor of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region (NKAR)

Vladimir Kovalev - Head of the Interior Ministry Department for NKAR

Sergei Ivanov - Head of Security Service for NKAR

Nikolay Zhinkin - commandant of the state of emergency region

Sanlal Serikov - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan

Mikhail Lukashev - Major-General of the Militia

Oleg Kocherev - Lieutenant Colonel

Rafig Mammadov - Assistant Secretary of State

Ali Mustafayev - TV journalist

Arif Huseynzadeh - illuminator for AZTV

Fahraddin Shahbazov - cameraman

Vyacheslav Kotov - helicopter crew commander

Gennady Domov - member of the helicopter crew

Dmitry Yalovenko - member of the helicopter crew. -0-