 Gorbachev deemed these detachments and others in Karabakh as illegal entities and banned them in a decree in July 1990.Despite this promulgation, these groups continued to exist and actively fought against Azerbaijani "special-purpose" militia brigades.The volatility of the attacks led the Soviet government to position military units in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and along the five-kilometer gap between the Armenian border and Nagorno-Karabakh.