Azerbaijan officially revealed its acquisition of the sophisticated Turkish Bayraktar Akinci combat drone on Feb. 9, following criticisms by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev of neighboring Armenia’s recent arms purchases.
Aliyev inspected the newly-acquired high-altitude long-endurance, unmanned combat aerial vehicle on Feb. 9 and various accompanying Turkish-made weaponry, including SOM and Cakir cruise missiles produced by Turkey’s Rokestan missile manufacturer. He even signed the drone.
The Akinci ACAV is much larger and has more advanced and sophisticated sensors than its widely exported predecessor, the Bayraktar TB2. It also has more hardpoints and can carry heavier and more sophisticated bombs and missiles than the TB2. Azerbaijani TB2s devastated Armenian ground forces during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended in a decisive victory for Baku.
The Akinci can also carry long-range munitions, such as the cruise missiles Aliyev inspected, meaning it could potentially launch standoff strikes against Armenian targets while staying out of range of air defenses and even without leaving Azerbaijani airspace.
The UCAV’s powerful active electronically scanned array radar and sensors could complete valuable intelligence-surveillance-target acquisition (ISTAR) and command-control-communications (C3) tasks for the Azerbaijani armed forces.
The Akinci is the most advanced drone Azerbaijan has procured to date and is another testament to the close military ties between Baku and Ankara.
The UCAV’s unveiling came mere months after Aliyev sharply criticized France and India for selling Armenia military hardware. He accused those countries of “pouring oil on fire” and creating “unrealistic illusions in Armenia” that it could retake Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku completely conquered the enclave in a lightning military offensive on Sept. 19, which resulted in the entire ethnic Armenian population of over 100,000 people fleeing in terror to Armenia, causing a humanitarian crisis.
Armenia has signed significant arms deals with France and India in recent months. These deals coincided with Yerevan’s growing frustration with Moscow, which traditionally served as its leading arms supplier and security guarantor since the end of the Cold War, after Moscow failed to prevent, or even significantly protest, Azerbaijan’s military offensives. Furthermore, Armenia wants to diversify its sources for military hardware since Russia has become a much less reliable provider of arms, spare parts, and technical support since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Most of the weaponry Armenia has ordered so far is defensive. It’s acquiring short-range Mistral air defenses and Bastion armored personnel carriers from France. From India, it has ordered Pinaka multiple rocket launchers and medium-range Akash air defenses.
Armenia’s interest in diversifying its air defenses is unsurprising. During the 2020 war, Azerbaijan’s Israeli-built Harop loitering munitions sought out and destroyed Armenian Soviet-built long-range S-300 air defense missile systems within Armenia’s borders. The Akash can purportedly target aircraft and cruise missiles from up to 28 miles away, which Yerevan would need if it came under attack from Azerbaijani Akincis. The Mistral can do little more than provide point defense for specific bases or installations, certainly no game-changing capability.
In other words, while these acquisitions will enhance Armenia’s defenses, they won’t alter the balance of military power in the South Caucasus. And Azerbaijan already possesses equivalent and even superior systems.
Azerbaijan notably live-fired an Israeli Barak air defense system during a large air defense drill in the week leading up to its September 2023 Karabakh operation. The move was likely in preparation to prevent Armenia from intervening with its modest air force or retaliating with its Iskander short-range ballistic missiles. Azerbaijan is widely believed to have downed an Armenian Iskander in 2020 with a Barak 8. Like Armenia, it also has S-300s, which participated in a training exercise this month.
Baku also reportedly used Harops and Israeli-made LORA theater quasi-ballistic missiles during the September operation. Israel supplied the Azerbaijani military with equipment and ammunition in the lead-up to both offensives.
Most recently, Armenia lost four of its soldiers to Azerbaijani fire on the border on Feb. 13. Even Aliyev’s closest ally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urged him to avoid such flare-ups and pursue a comprehensive peace deal with Yerevan.
Armenia has already agreed to relinquish all claims to Karabakh provided its national sovereignty is recognized and not violated in line with its Soviet-era borders. The Azerbaijani president has coveted parts of southern Armenia to establish a land bridge, which Azerbaijan dubs the Zangezur Corridor, to link up with its western Nakhchivan exclave. However, he has shown openness to establishing an alternative corridor through Iran.
In the meantime, without a peace agreement, and with Azerbaijan continually enhancing its modern military with cutting-edge Akinci drones and Israeli weaponry, Armenia is investing in relatively modest defense acquisitions in preparation for the utterly unthinkable: a third conflict in the region in this decade.