Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramian (Russian: Иван Христофорович Баграмян) (December 2 1897 - September 21 1982), Soviet military commander, was born the son of an Armenian railway worker, near Yelizavetpol (later Kirovabad, now Gyandzha in Azerbaijan), then part of the Russian Empire. He joined the Russian Army in 1915, and spent the remainder of World War I fighting the Ottomans on the Caucasian Front. He was demobilised in 1917, and in 1920 he joined the Red Army and took part in the Russian Civil War, fighting against Armenian and Georgian nationalist forces.

In 1925 Bagramian graduated from the Leningrad Cavalry School, and in 1934 from the Frunze Military Academy . From 1934 to 1936 he served as the chief of staff of the 5th Cavalry Division, and from 1938 he worked as a senior instructor at the military academy of the Soviet General Staff. He returned to active command in 1940, becoming chief of the operations branch of the staff of the Kiev Special Military District.

Folling the German invasion of the Soviet union in June 1941 Bagramian was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Southwestern Front, headquartered at Kiev. He took part in the great tank battles in western Ukraine and the defensive operation around Kiev, in which his commander General Mikhail Kirponos was killed and the entire Front captured by the Germans. He was one of a handful of senior officers who escaped from the encircled army.

Bagramian was then appointed chief of staff to Marshal Semyon Timoshenko in the fighting around Rostov and in the unsuccessful Soviet counter-offensive at Kharkov in 1942. He was promoted to command of the 11th Guard Army, which he led in the battles at Orel (Operation Kutuzov ). In November 1943, with the rank of Colonel-General, he was appointed commander of the 1st Baltic Front and took part in the great 1944 Soviet offensive in Byelorussia and Lithuania (Operation Bagration). His armies broke through to the Baltic Sea and cut off 30 divisions of German troops in Latvia. For his achievements in this battle he was given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In early 1945 Bagramian's army, under the overall command of Marshal Aleksandr Vasilievsky, took part in the advance into East Prussia. Bagramian commanded the forces which captured Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in April and at the end of the war he took the surrender of the German forces penned up in Latvia.

After the war Bagramian remained in command of the Baltic Military District , commanding operations against nationalist partisans in Lithuania and Latvia. In 1954 he was appointed Chief Inspector of the Defense Ministry. In 1955 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence with the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. He was also head of the Military Academy of General Staff and commander of the reserve forces of the Soviet Armed Forces. He retired in 1968. He was twice made a Hero of the Soviet Union, received seven Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov and the Order of Kutuzov .