(Reuters) - A separatist Armenian human rights official in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh said 25 people had been killed there on Tuesday as a result of an Azerbaijani military offensive.

Two of the dead were civilians, Gegham Stepanyan said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Stepanyan added later that 138 people, including 29 civilians, had been wounded. Reuters could not verify his information.

Azerbaijan sent troops into Armenian-controlled Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of its own territory, earlier on Tuesday in an attempt to bring the region to heel by force, raising the threat of a new war with neighbour Armenia.

(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Heinrich)