British journalist Thomas de Waal has described Operation Ring as the Soviet Union's first and only civil war and as the "beginning of the open, armed phase of the Karabakh conflict.

His preoccupation in dealing with the numerous demands by the other republics saw the disappearance of vast amounts of assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and other small arms munitions stored in caches throughout Armenia and Azerbaijan.

[11] Despite this promulgation, these groups continued to exist and actively fought against Azerbaijani special-purpose militia brigades, or OMON (Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, also known as the "black berets").

Shahumyan (also spelled Shaumian, now the southern part of the Goranboy District of Azerbaijan), which lies directly to the north of Nagorno-Karabakh, had a population of about 20,000, of which 85 percent was ethnic Armenian.

While the Armenian volunteers pledged to defend and protect civilians living in Shahumyan from Azerbaijani incursions, many of them were told to stay away by the inhabitants themselves to save the villages and the entire district from violence.

[18][19] Viktor Krivopuskov, who visited Karabakh in 1990, writes: Early in November 1990 our fact-finding group got hold of secret materials of the authorities of the Azerbaijan SSR on the total deportation of the Armenian population from the villages of Khanlar and of former Shahumyan regions.

[20]The Russian human rights organization Memorial reports the expulsion of civilians in this region as early as 1989–90, when the inhabitants of the villages Kushi-Armavir, Azat, and Kamo were forced to abandon their homes.

[21][16] The Azerbaijani OMON had similarly been engaged in various "acts of harassment against Armenian villages in the enclave, including raids on collective farms and the destruction of... communal facilities.

[23] Mutalibov's staunch loyalty to Gorbachev allowed him to garner backing from Moscow and, in effect, he now had the support to discourage the aspirations of Armenians desiring to unite with Armenia or to force them to leave the region altogether.

[12] A date in late April was chosen for the commencement of the operation, which called for Soviet troops to surround the villages and search for illegally procured weapons and Armenian guerrilla fighters.

Reacting to the growing violence, Gorbachev had also assigned units of the Soviet 4th Army's predominantly Azerbaijani 23rd Motorized Rifle Division, stationed along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, to serve as a buffer force.

[26] On 30 April, the Soviet troops and OMON converged toward Getashen and Martunashen, which were located approximately twenty-five kilometres (15 miles) north of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Khanlar District of the Azerbaijan SSR, meeting little, if any, resistance on the way.

[12] While approaching the villages in Shahumyan, the military would announce their intended actions with a loudspeaker and called for the inhabitants to display proof of their citizenship (known as a "passport-regime" check) in an effort to root out the fedayeen groups led by Tatul Krpeyan, a local schoolteacher from Armenia proper.

[31] Initial public outcry denounced the launching of the operation as the Soviet and Azerbaijani governments went on to defend it, stating that the villagers of Shahumyan were providing aid and harbouring the militias in their homes.

Under the same pretext as the previous operation, the joint forces entered Armenia with tanks and other armoured vehicles, claiming that militia units were staging attacks from that area into Azerbaijan.

[34] Anatoly Shabad, the leading parliamentary member, secured the return of the captured Armenian policemen as the Soviet forces desisted from continuing out the rest of the operation.

[1][a] The human rights organization Memorial gives the following description of the events:Early in the morning (usually 2–3 days prior to deportation) the settlement is encircled by USSR Interior Ministry troops or Soviet Army servicemen.

[42] Professor Richard Wilson of Harvard University, who presented a report to the First International Andrei Sakharov Conference, noted that his fact-finding group did not find any "evidence, in spite of diligent enquiry, that anyone recently deported from the village of Getashen left it voluntarily.

[43]The final report of the Committee on Human Rights of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR also concluded that the documents signed under the use of force cannot serve as evidence of voluntary departure of residents.

According to the US Department of State report, In April Soviet army and Interior Ministry forces and Azeri OMON detachments attacked several Armenian villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and forcibly deported over 1,000 residents to Armenia, causing death, injuries, and loss of property.

However, following the withdrawal of the MVD Internal Troops, the 23rd Division and Azerbaijani OMON attacked and expelled the inhabitants of three more Armenian-populated villages in Shahumyan: Erkech, Buzlug, and Manashid.

[49] Operation Ring, however, managed to reinforce the ethnic divide between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, "virtually precluding," according to Michael Croissant "the possibility of further coexistence between the peoples within" Azerbaijan's borders.