In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Armenian Service on April 9, RSC Director Richard Giragosian assessed the deepening of Russian-Azerbaijani military cooperation and the recent trend of a steady increase in the quantity and quality of Russian arms sales to Baku. The interview was timed with the visit to Baku by Russian General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian army’s General Staff, and reports of a new pending arms deal between the two countries.
Giragosian noted that “Moscow has been consistently seeking to improve its relations with Baku and has emerged as the number one arms provider to Azerbaijan, as well as to Armenia.” He also stressed that “Armenia should be concerned with this trend, especially as Azerbaijani has been increasing its procurement of much more modern offensive weapons systems in recent years.”
More specifically, the level of Russian arms surged in recent years, with deliveries of nearly $1 billion worth of offensive weaponry, including about 100 tanks, to Azerbaijan in accordance with defense contracts signed in 2010-2011. Azerbaijani President Ilham President Ilham Aliyev said in August 2013 that “the volume of military-technical cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan is measured at $4 billion and it tends to grow further.” Russia has previously supplied Azerbaijan with state-of-the-art S-300 air-defense systems worth hundreds of millions of dollars and agreed in 2010 to sell 24 Mi-35 combat helicopters for a combined $360 million.
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