Turkey has openly asserted its support for the Azerbaijani offensive, while Russia is officially allied with Armenia.
You can read this earlier article to learn more about the events leading up to the current escalation, and the reports emerging from the war zone.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have released combat footage in a bid to influence the narrative of who is “winning” the conflict.
Armenian military sources have released extensive footage depicting damage or destruction of Armenian tanks and armored vehicles by ground forces. Azerbaijan, by contrast, has primarily released videos of drone strikes picking off air defense and armored vehicles.
This by itself is not a new phenomenon. Azerbaijan earlier purchased a variety of advanced unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) from Israel, and in 2016 was the first nation to use a kamikaze drone in combat when it crashed a Harops loitering munition into a bus full of Armenian militia. These drones were again active during fighting July 2020.
However, the drone strike footage shared by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense in September showed something different—an interface which appears identical to the TB2 Bayraktar UCAV drone employed by Turkey.
Turkey has used the Bayraktar aggressively in conflicts Libya and Syria in 2020, with operationally decisive results. Though opposing surface-to-air missiles shot down a significant number of drones, the Turkish UCAVs in turn still managed to methodically pick off (manned) air defense vehicles one by one.
And once the air defenses were suppressed, Turkish drones could ravage enemy bases, artillery positions and vehicle columns unhindered with lightweight precision missiles.
It doesn’t take a master of forensics to spot why the video released by Azerbaijan’s MoD looks very much like it’s coming from a TB2. Consider the following footage of Turkish military TB2 strikes in Syria and Libya.
Both sides claim to have inflicted considerable material and personnel losses on their adversaries, while conceding only to much lighter losses of their own. Such discrepancies arise both organically from the “fog of war” as well as deliberate exaggeration in an effort to win the propaganda war.
Azerbaijan’s MoD claims its forces have destroyed 22 tanks and armored fighting vehicles, 15 Osa or Tor short-range air defense systems, 18 drones, eight artillery systems (towed and/or self-propelled) and three ammunition depots, and to have inflicted 550 Armenian killed or wounded.
The NKR has admitted to a total of 31 soldiers killed—an earlier statement also counted 100 wounded. In turn, it claims its forces have shot down four helicopters and 27 drones, knocked out 33 tanks and four other types of armored fighting vehicles, and inflicted around 200 casualties.
A separate report claims the capture of 11 Azerbaijani vehicles, including a BMP-3.
One gruesome video released by Armenia appears to show three knocked-out BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles and ten deceased Azerbaijani soldiers. Other videos show munitions impacting T-72 tanks, BMP-3 fighting vehicles, BTR-82 APCs and an IMR engineering vehicle.
Two Armenian civilians (a woman and a girl) and an Azerbaijani family of five in the town of Gashalti have been reported killed amidst heavy shelling so far, with another 30 Armenian and 19 Azerbaijani civilians injured.
Azerbaijan’s leader Ilham Aliyev may have initiated the current hostilities in a bid to shore up political support after nationalist protestors briefly seized the parliament building in Baku in July during earlier skirmishes with Armenian troops. Thus, it’s possible the war may not last long if territorial gains allow him to “declare victory and go home.”
International pressure from Europe, the U.S. and especially Russia is ramping up to cease the fighting. However, Turkish political and material support for Azerbaijan may partially countervail such pressure for a time.
Escalation risks remain important however, as Armenia and Azerbaijan possess combat aircraft and long-range missiles and rocket artillery that could strike deep into each other’s territory. A wider conflict could disrupt or damage the lucrative oil industry in Azerbaijan, and heighten already simmering tensions between Turkey and Russia following a year marked by clashes in Syria and Libya.
Most importantly, the humanitarian cost of a wider and/or prolonged conflict could be terrible indeed for both Armenians and Azerbaijanis, which makes diplomatic efforts to head off escalation before the fighting gathers more momentum all the more vital.