Since Azerbaijan launched its assault on Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on September 27, there has been a torrent of violent imagery from both sides on social media.
Video after video depict drone strikes setting military vehicles ablaze and unsuspecting troop formations abruptly vanishing in spasms of artillery fire. Photos reveal urban apartment buildings torn apart by massive rockets, and corpses piled up like cordwood after deadly ambushes in narrow valleys. Reporters venturing to Armenian and Azerbaijani communities mid-bombardment have shared images of devastation and tales of suffering.
It’s possible to draw upon this huge but disturbing body of evidence to gain insight into what is happening on the ground—even while remaining mindful that what gets recorded on camera and shared on the internet is by no means the whole picture.
Here’s what open sources and journalistic accounts can and can’t tell us about territorial changes in the conflict, vehicle losses, the number of dead, drone losses, attacks on civilians, war crimes, and the role played by Turkey in the war.
Azerbaijani Ground Force Have Captured Significant Territory
The war is over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region which has an Armenian majority population, but which de jure is generally recognized as Azerbaijani territory.
Since a war in the 1990s, a de facto Armenian government called Artsakh or the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) has controlled the region, and several Azerbaijani districts outside of it, with support from Armenia.
A mutual history of atrocities and ethnic cleansing predating the fall of the Soviet Union has resulted in decades of border skirmishes and deepening enmity and mistrust between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, with little progress towards a peaceful resolution.
As of October 22, Azerbaijani forces have seized a number of towns and strategic heights from Armenian troops across the breadth of the frontline in Nagorno-Karabakh, including the (until recently) populated towns of Hadrut, Mataghis and Zangilan, as well as many depopulated ghost towns such as Füzuli, Jabrayil and Talish.
While Armenian and Azerbaijan have offered conflicting accounts, some of the territory changes can be verified by geo-locating photos of Azerbaijani troops in these areas.
Using geo-location of photos, one analysis on October 22 estimates Azerbaijan has occupied nearly 10% of the territory in Nagorno-Karabakh formerly held by Armenian forces, up from an estimated 2.8% according to different analysts in an article published October 14.
In a speech on Oct. 20, Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev suggested expansive objectives for expelling Armenian forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Despite earlier signaling openness to negotiations, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan subsequently stated Armenians would have “victory or defeat, nothing in between.”
Azerbaijan’s military will hope its territorial gains will rupture the cohesion of the Armenian defensive lines, allowing them to advance with greater momentum at lower cost.
The naturally-occurring fortifications created by Nagorno-Karabakh mountainous terrain assist such defensive strategy. Commanding heights overlook ground largely devoid of cover and narrow road chokepoints create abundant opportunities for lethal ambushes.
Armenian troops also appear in recent videos to have fallen back to wooded terrain providing cover from aerial observation and attack.
But mountainous terrain holds perils for the defender too, constraining lines of resupply, retreat and counterattack. Notably, if Azerbaijan succeeds in physically occupying the Lachin highway connecting Stepanakert to Armenia, than the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic could become untenable and even civilian refugees may find themselves without a route through which to flee the fighting.
This coincides with a second issue: behind the frontline fighting, Armenian support units and lines of communication have come under an aerial assault of unprecedented scale in the long-running conflict.
Hundreds of videos released by Azerbaijan show drones blasting Armenian fighting vehicles and heavy weapons, as well as destroying resupply and reinforcement convoys. Azerbaijan’s government is posting the strike footage on digital billboards for public viewing.
Azerbaijan’s attack helicopters, by contrast, have only seen limited use. Armenian aviation has not been active, save for an Su-25K attack jet sortie which ended with the loss of the plane under disputed circumstances.
We can quantify some of the scale of the material losses suffered by Armenian forces due to work by open-source intelligence bloggers Stijn Mitzer and Jakub Janovsky, who document and classify vehicle losses confirmed by visual media from both sides, taking care to avoid counting the same damaged or destroyed vehicle more than once.
Of course, their tally cannot account for all the losses which haven’t been recorded and shared on the internet, or that otherwise escaped their notice. However, they do offer a minimum count of the damaged, destroyed or captured vehicles that can be visually verified.
Air defense vehicles damaged or destroyed include:
- 14 9K33 Osa (SA-8) and 9K35 Strela-10 (SA-13) mobile short-range air defense systems
- 4 S-300PS (SA-10) and one 2K12 (SA-6) medium or long-range surface-to-air missile launch vehicles
- 8 air defense radars
Two loitering munition strikes early in the conflict struck dummy air defense vehicles. However, the successful use of such decoys has not been documented since.
After the first few days, drone strikes were primarily directed at vehicles, facilities and artillery behind or approaching the frontline.
The following is a non-comprehensive list of Armenian vehicles that have been shown to be damaged, destroyed or captured. In aggregate, they amount to the loss of around five armored or mechanized battalions.
- 144 T-72A and T-72B main battle tanks
- 35 BMP-1 and -2 infantry fighting vehicles
- 19 MT-LB tracked APCs, some with heavy weapons
- 310 trucks, jeeps and miscellaneous soft-skinned vehicles
Armenian artillery losses appear equally staggering as of Oct. 22, equivalent to the destruction of six or seven artillery battalions in aggregate:
- 49 122- and 152-millimeter towed howitzers and field guns
- 12 2S1 and 2S3 armored self-propelled howitzers
- 52 BM-21 Grad 122-millimeter multiple rocket launchers
- 3 BM-30 and WM-80 heavy multiple rocket launchers
Starting around mid-October, drone footage showed a new emphasis on hitting infantry positions, presumably near the frontline.
Meanwhile, since the beginning of hostilities, the destruction or capture of the following Azerbaijani armored vehicles were recorded, mostly using anti-tank guided missiles, artillery and rocket propelled grenades:
- 20 T-72A and AV main battle tanks
- 2 T-90S main battle tanks
- 17 BMP-1, -2 and -3 tracked infantry fighting vehicles
- 5 BTRA-82A wheeled personnel carriers
There are several important caveats to bear in mind when considering these numbers.
First, because Armenian forces aren’t operating combat drones, they inevitably are recording less imagery of vehicles getting destroyed.
As detailed in this earlier article, both Armenia and Azerbaijan are unleashing long-range artillery on each other’s civilian population centers. Armenia has reported 37 civilian dead so far, while Azerbaijani media reports 61 dead.
Azerbaijan has continuously bombarded the Nagorno-Karabakh regional capital of Stepanakert and the nearby cultural center of Shusha/Shushi.
Armenian forces also reportedly used Tochka (SS-21 Scarab) and Scud ballistic missiles in four separate attacks on Ganja between Oct. 5through Oct. 17, killing 25 civilians.
Cluster munitions, which are banned in many countries, but not by the combatants in question, were identified showering down on Stepanakert. The munitions are reportedly of Israeli manufacture.
The deliberate attacks on civilians, which are war crimes, are likely intended to demoralize their respective civilian populations, and decrease support for a continued war effort. The ultimate effect can only be to deepen the enmity between the two nations.
War Crime On Video
A video shared on Azerbaijani social media appear to show an incident in which two Armenian soldiers surrender to Azerbaijani troops at Hadrut. A subsequent video (not shared here) appears to show the killing of the same two POWs.
The Azerbaijani government later took down the videos and claimed they were fake. However, a detailed investigation by Bellingcat concluded they appeared to be authentic.
Other crimes have been alleged by both sides but have not been verified as far as the author knows.
Just how involved is Turkey?
Ankara openly supports Azerbaijan’s campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh. However, journalists and open source intelligence has illuminated aspects of the relationship that were unconfirmed or contested.
Most importantly, Turkey quietly transferred TB2 drones to Azerbaijan prior to the commencement of hostilities. Their activity over Nagorno-Karabakh was discerned through open-source analysis a week before Azerbaijani officials admitted their presence.
Multiple and distinct press outlets have also seemingly confirmed rumors denied by Ankara that Turkey had transported mercenaries recruited from Syrian rebel groups to support Azerbaijan’s campaign.
Armenian sources have also claimed Turkish F-16 fighters have attacked Armenian targets. A New York Times NYT investigation released satellite photos confirming the presence of two Turkish F-16s in Ganja International Airport in Azerbaijan.
However, this does not necessarily prove the F-16s have been used in a combat role—they may have been detached to escort Turkish cargo planes transporting arms to Azerbaijan instead.
Final Thoughts
Earlier in October, several observers remarked that the huge destruction apparently inflicted by Azerbaijan’s drones interdicting vehicles behind the frontline had not resulted in major territorial gains, the objective of Azerbaijan’s offensive.
Air forces tend to prefer interdiction missions rather than close air support at the frontline because vehicle convoys and conspicuous rear-are bases and bivouacs are more vulnerable than well-camouflaged and entrenched frontline units.
But interdiction strikes have a delayed payoff: they reduce an enemy’s ability to resupply and reinforce frontline units and concentrate fresh forces to mount counteroffensives.
It’s too early to tell whether Azerbaijani ground forces will sustain the advance or get bogged down by Armenian defenses, difficult terrain and forthcoming winter weather. However, if Azerbaijani troops manage to cut off the logistical link connecting Stepanakert to Armenia, the position of Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh may become highly precarious.