Operation Goranboy

On 12 June 1992, just five days after Abulfaz Elchibey of Popular Front of Azerbaijan was elected the President of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani military first launched a large scale diversionary attack from the east, in the direction of the Askeran region at the center of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani troops attacked positions to the north and south of Askeran. As a result of fierce fighting the Azerbaijanis managed to establish control over several settlements in the Askeran region: Nakhichevanik, Dovşanlı, Pirjamal, Dahraz, and Agbulaq.

On June 18, 1992, a State of Emergency was announced throughout NKR. On August 15, the Committee for State-Defense of NKR was created, headed by Robert Kocharyan and later by Serzh Sargsyan. Partial mobilization was called for, which covered sergeants and privates in the NKR, NKR men available for military service aged 18–40, officers up to the age of 50 and women with previous military training.[5] The newly conscripted men now numbered 15,000 men.[3]

The thrust made by the Azerbaijanis ground to a halt when their armor was driven off by helicopter gunships.[3] It was claimed that many of the crew members of the armored units in the Azerbaijani-launched assault were Russians from the 104th Guards Airborne Division based out of Ganja and, ironically enough, so were the units who eventually stopped them. According to an Armenian government official, they were able to persuade Russian military units to bombard and effectively halt the advance within a few days. According to Russian General Lev Rokhlin, Russian effectively supplied Armenians with T-72 tanks and fifty BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles from its military base in Mozdok in the summer of 1992. Most of the ammunition was flown to Armenia by Antonov An-124 military cargo planes.[3]

After the reorganization of the NKR Defense Army, the tide of Azerbaijani advances was finally stopped. By September–December 1992 Azerbaijan's army was exhausted and suffered heavy losses. Faced with an imminent defeat, Suret Huseynov moved what was left of his army out of Aghdara and back to Ganja, where it could be recuperated and restocked by the 104th Guards Airborne Division of the Soviet Airborne Troops.[3] However, after recuperating Huseynov did not march on Aghdara, but on Baku, intending to overthrow President Abulfez Elchibey in a military coup. In February 1993, direct evidence of treason by Azerbaijani Minister of Defense Rahim Gaziyev and Suret Huseynov was found in recorded conversation where Gaziyev was telling Huseynov about deliberate abandoning of Azerbaijani soldiers encircled in Hasanriz village by Armenians to their fate.[3]

• Battle of Aghdam
• Battle of Kelbajar