Artsakh Defence Army
The Artsakh Defence Army () was the defence force of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh. Established in 1992, it united previously disorganized self-defence units which were formed in the early 1990s with the goal of protecting the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh from attacks by Soviet and Azerbaijani armed forces. It was disbanded on 21 September 2023 under the terms of Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement following the 2023 Azerbaijani military offensive. History Establishment The Artsakh Defence Army was founded on 9 May 1992. It created "its own central command and military structure distinct from the Armenian Army." Its founders included Robert Kocharyan (the former President of Armenia, he was the first commander-in-chief of the Army); Serzh Sargsyan (former Prime Minister and President of Armenia); Vazgen Sargsyan (Armenia's Defence Minister 1992–93, State Minister in Charge of defence 1993–95, Armenia's Prime Minister 1998–99); Monte Melkonian (responsible for Martuni Province); Samvel Babayan (Nagorno-Karabakh's Defence Minister from 1994 to 2000) and others. Many of the men who served in its ranks and in the officer corps during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War were seasoned veterans of the Soviet military and had fought in the Soviet–Afghan War. First Nagorno-Karabakh War The formal formation of the NKR Defence Army was rooted in the concept of the Jokat (volunteer detachment). With the early outbreak of hostilities prior to 1992, Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh began forming small detachments of volunteers, often self-described as Fedayeen, inheriting the name of the fighters who actively resisted the Ottoman Empire in the final decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries. At the outset these detachments were small groups of no more than 12–40 men. For example, during Operation Ring, Shahumyan was defended by a force as small as 22 men under the command of Tatul Krpeyan. These volunteer militia would initially arm themselves with whatever was available, including hunting shotguns borrowed from local farmers and even home-made rifles. In the later stages of the war, these units armed themselves with AK-47s, RPGs and sometimes MANPADs, transforming the defence force into a highly mobile and flexible force that was capable of waging guerrilla warfare. Likewise, these units initially had no heavy military equipment, but later started taking over large quantities of Azerbaijani tanks and armored personnel carriers that were abandoned on the battlefield. Most of these captured tanks and APCs later became part of the NKR Defense Army's equipment. Improvization, multi-functionality, creativity, strong-morale, focus on defensive tactics, adaptation, flexibility, high-mobility and a native knowledge of the mountainous terrain are all important factors in understanding the combat success of these small units. The initial purpose of these detachments, made up of volunteers, was mainly to defend Armenian civilian population, each in a particular village or town. Each of them was operating independently with no central command or leadership. Yet, these units would regularly collaborate in joint operations such as the battle of Khojaly in February 1992 or the June 1992 surprise counter-offensives during Operation Goranboy. The increasing scale and intensity of Azerbaijani attacks,