Battle of Kelbajar

Part of the Nagorno-Karabakh War

Date	March 27–April 3, 1993
Location	Kelbajar, region in Azerbaijan
Result	Armenian victory

Belligerents

Armenia

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

Azerbaijan

Commanders and leaders

Shamil Asgarov

"Khan"

Strength

Several hundred troops, including the crew members of tanks and armored fighting vehicles;
Russian 128th Regiment (7th Russian Army) (involvement disputed)

Unknown amount of infantry and tanks

Casualties and losses

Unknown, at least 100 reported by Armenian commanders

Contested by Armenians and Azerbaijani government; civilians deaths after the battle ended estimated to be at least 200; with 62,000 Azerbaijani IDPs

The Battle of Kelbajar took place in March and April 1993, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. It resulted in the capture by Armenian military forces of the Kelbajar region of Azerbaijan.

Kelbajar lay outside the contested enclave of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, but within Nagorno-Karabakh geographic region of Azerbaijan, that Armenian and Azerbaijani forces had been fighting over for five years. The offensive was the first time Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh had advanced beyond the boundaries of the enclave. Kelbajar rayon, located between Armenia and the western border of former NKAO, was composed of several dozen villages and its provincial capital, also named Kelbajar. According to Russian sources mountain troops from the 128th Regiment (7th Russian Army) stationed in Armenia participated in the seizure of Kelbajar in a blitzkrieg operation. After initial heavy resistance, the Azerbaijani defenses quickly collapsed and the provincial capital fell on April 3, 1993. Kelbajar is currently under the control of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

An autonomous oblast during the Soviet era under the jurisdiction of the Azerbaijan SSR, Nagorno-Karabakh's population was approximately 75% ethnic Armenian. As the Soviet Union's disintegration approached during the late 1980s, the enclave's government expressed its desire to secede and unite with the neighboring Armenian SSR. By 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan were independent countries but the nascent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic remained internationally unrecognized despite its government's declaration of independence. Small-scale violence had flared up between the two ethnic groups in February 1988 but soon escalated to use of Soviet-built tanks, helicopters, and fighter bombers appropriated by both sides after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On May 9, 1992, Armenian forces captured the mountain stronghold of Shusha but remained on the defensive until the next year. Fighting between Armenians and Azeris continued in other parts of the enclave, including Lachin, Khojavend, and Aghdara. However, nearly all offensives launched by Azerbaijan failed or could not hold on to captured territory. By the spring of 1993 the Azerbaijani military, which had the upper hand in the initial stages of the war, had been largely reduced to unorganized and incoherent fighting groups. By March 1993 the fighting had shifted to west and south of Karabakh.

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Wikipedia