Turkey and Israel have been upgrading Azerbaijan’s aging military hardware, despite Baku’s ongoing defense purchases from the two countries to bolster its military, Forbes reported Thursday.
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and high-level officials in his administration have been criticizing Yerevan for acquiring military hardware from various countries, including France and India, accusing especially Paris of arming Armenia and escalating tensions between the two neighboring countries.
Yet Aliyev has boasted about Azerbaijan’s military capabilities and the billions of dollars his government is spending to bolster its armed forces.
Azerbaijan recently publicly unveiled the Russian military hardware upgraded by Israeli and Turkish military technology companies at a defense exposition in Baku last moth.
“The upgrades indicate that Azerbaijan wants to keep its older equipment in service and up-to-date, even as it modernizes its armed forces with new advanced drones, also from Israel and Turkey, and modern JF-17C Block III multirole fighter jets from Pakistan,” Forbes reported.
At the September 24 to 26 Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition 2024, Baku showcased its upgraded Su-25 Frogfoot attack aircraft and T-72 main battle tanks. Other older upgraded Soviet-era weaponry displayed at the event included ZSU-23-4 Shilka anti-aircraft guns and 9K33 Osa short-range surface-to-air missile systems. These designs date back to the late 1950s and 1960s, according to Forbes.
Azerbaijan deployed newly-purchased drones from Israel and Turkey during the 2020 Artsakh War.
With TUSAS’ new upgrades to the Russian SU-25s, the Azerbaijani Frogfoots can launch several Turkish-made guided and glide bombs and even cruise missiles, giving the close air support plane a standoff strike capability. The aircraft’s avionics also received a comprehensive upgrade.
Azerbaijan’s upgraded T-72s were also presented at ADEX 2024. Azerbaijan built its fleet of these Soviet-era main battle tanks through imports from Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Slovakia in the 2000s, according to the SIPRI database.
“Azerbaijan also ordered a fleet of newer T-90S tanks from Russia in the 2010s. Upgrading its T-72s indicates it also wants to keep these older tanks in service for the foreseeable future. Israel’s Elbit Systems, which specializes in modernizing Soviet-era hardware and other older armor and aircraft, performed the upgrades,” according to Forbes.
Despite Ankara’s criticism of Israel over the Gaza War, Turkey’s Baykar Defense—manufacturer of the popular Bayraktar TB2 drone of which Azerbaijan is an operator—co-sponsored this year’s ADEX fair alongside Israel Aerospace Industries.
