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Hadrut (, ) is a town in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The town had an ethnic Armenians-majority population prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Numerous Armenians civilians were killed in and around Hadrut by Azerbaijani forces during or after the battle. Subsequently, Azerbaijanis soldiers vandalized Armenians-owned property, including the local church and cemetery, obliterating its Gravestone.
The town is also infrequently called () by Armenians. In Azerbaijan, the town is also called ().
During the Russian period, Hadrut was governed as part of different administrative divisions: first as a part of Karabakh Province (1822–1840), then in the Shusha uezd of the Caspian Oblast (1840–1846), then in the Shusha uezd of the Shemakha Governorate (1846–1859), then of the Shusha uezd of the Baku Governorate (1859–1868), and finally, of the Shusha uezd of the Elizavetpol Governorate (1868–1873) and later the Jebrail uezd of the Elizavetpol Governorate (1873–1917) successively.
In the Soviet Union period, Hadrut became the centre of the Hadrut District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within Azerbaijan SSR and was given the urban settlement status in 1963. Some of the earliest activities of the Karabakh movement occurred in Hadrut, beginning with the collection of petitions in 1986 for the transfer of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast to the Armenian SSR and culminating in a demonstration of one thousand people in Hadrut in February 1988, which then spread to the capital of the NKAO, Stepanakert. Following the Armenian victory in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Hadrut became the administrative center of the Hadrut Province of the Republic of Artsakh.
In the midst of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, heavy fighting took place in Hadrut, marked by the usage of by the Azerbaijani Army. Azerbaijan captured Hadrut on or around 9 October 2020. Although most of the civilian population was evacuated, Armenian authorities reported that a number of civilians were killed by Azerbaijani forces in Hadrut and the surrounding area during or after the battle. Following the battle, a video of an execution of two unarmed and bound Armenian men in the town by Azerbaijani soldiers spread online, prompting investigations.
The town was vandalized and looted by Azerbaijani soldiers after its capture, with people's belongings strewn throughout the streets and the contents of homes upturned. The Armenian cemetery of the town's church was vandalized as well, with its gravestones having been kicked down and smashed. In January 2021, as part of the reconstruction work in Hadrut, new Azerbaijani-language street signs were erected in Hadrut with new street names based on the names of fallen Azerbaijani soldiers and historical Azerbaijani personalities. In June 2021, Azerbaijani authorities installed an "Iron Fist" monument in the town to celebrate the outcome of the 2020 war.
The earliest recorded census of the town of Hadrut showed a population of around 2,400 registered inhabitants in 1939, of which more than 90% was Armenian.Result of the Soviet census of 1939 of the Hadrut district Hadrut kept an Armenian-majority population throughout the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, up until the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, during which the town was captured by Azerbaijani forces and the Armenian population was expelled.
| 1939 | 2,200 | 91.4 | 51 | 2.1 | 129 | 5.4 | 22 | 0.9 | 2,408 |
| 1970 | 1,845 | 88.6 | 137 | 6.6 | 68 | 3.3 | 18 | 0.9 | 2,082 |
| 1979 | 1,955 | 90.0 | 188 | 8.7 | 19 | 0.9 | 2 | 0.1 | 2,173 |
| 2005 De facto and De Jure Population by Administrative Territorial Distribution and Sex Census in NKR, 2005. THE NATIONAL STATISTICAL SERVICE OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH REPUBLIC | 2,936 | 100.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 2,936 |
| 2015 | 3,102 | 100.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 3,102 |
| October 2020: Seizure by Azerbaijani forces. Exodus of Armenian population | |||||||||
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