The Committee for State Security (KGB) was the only organization which had to protect the Soviet Union but it failed to notice problems within the USSR, the same way missing the signs of first ethnic clashes, according to former KGB chief investigator.
As Evgeni Strigin noted, “certain vague signs of an impending conflict in Caucasus, however, reached the KGB.”
“I myself saw Armenian rallies in Karabakh, with huge crowds gathered to demand secession from Azerbaijan,” he said.
“At the initial stage, it was still possible to suppress and “freeze” the conflict. Still, Moscow was either unable or unwilling to make inferences about the situation, in view of reforms which were urgent at the times,” Vesti.az cited Strigin as saying.
