 During World War I, the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated by the government in the Armenian Genocide.According to some estimates, from 1894 to 1923, about 1,500,000—2,000,000 Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire.After the decision to exterminate the Armenians was taken by the Ottoman Ministry of Interior and first implemented with the Directive 8682 on February 25, 1915, tens of thousands of Russian Armenians joined the Russian army as Armenian volunteer units with a Russian promise for autonomy.