Ethnic favoritism operated inside the Soviet army well before its collapse

Evidence

Russian military assistance to the Armenians actually had begun earlier in the Soviet army, in which Armenians were promoted to higher ranks and assigned to combat units much more frequently than Muslims. After the war began, the 366th Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Russian Army, based in Nagorno-Karabakh, played a leading role in the Armenian attack on the town of Khodjali, in which allegedly up to 1000 Azeris were massacred. Subsequently Russian spetsnaz troops also participated in the fighting. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 772