Three Armenian soldiers were killed early this morning near the Tavoush province village of Chinari in a firefight to prevent an Azerbaijan military unit attempting to cross the border.

The news was reported by Artzrun Hovhannisyan, a spokesman for Armenia’s Ministry of Defense, in his Facebook page.

Hovhannisyan wrote that the firefight erupted around 10:17 a.m. The spokesman reported that sniper and mortar fire was continuing 40 minutes after his post.

Update: Armenia’s Ministry of Defense later confirmed the death of the three soldiers – Senior Lieytenant Shavarsh Melikyan, and privates Edgar Narayan and Erik Abovyan. The ministry reports that Armenian defense units repelled the attempted Azerbaijani incursion, inflicting an unspecified number of dead and injured.

Later this afternoon, Artzrun Hovhannisyan posted in Facebook that at least seven Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in today's firefight. Azerbaijan has refuted this claim, arguing that Armenian forces, not Azerbaijani, had attempted to cross the border.