Nagorno-Karabakh Army Reveals Losses in Conflict Escalation

The armed forces of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh have lost 29 servicemen killed and 101 wounded, as well as 14 tanks destroyed, since the escalation of the Karabakh conflict, the NKR Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

YEREVAN (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, a ceasefire came into force between the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan, following five days of clashes that led to fatal casualties on both sides.

Hostilities in the mountainous Caucasus region have allegedly killed dozens of Armenians and Azeris since the frozen conflict flared up again on April 2.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians. It was at the heart of an Azeri-Armenian war in the early 1990s that ended in a Russia-mediated ceasefire in 1994.

"Since the outbreak of hostilities, the losses of the Defense Army total 29 servicemen killed and 101 wounded," Colonel Viktor Arustamyan, head of operations department of the NKR Defense Army, told a news conference in Stepanakert.

Arustamyan added that the NKR army lost 14 tanks, while the Azeri side lost 24 tanks, as well as 4 infantry fighting vehicles, 2 helicopters, 12 aerial drones and a Grad multiple launch rocket system in clashes along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact since April 2.