An Azerbaijani cargo plane recently completed another flight to and from a military airfield in southern Israel, continuing the transport of Israeli arms to Azerbaijan, reports Azatutyun.
According to flight tracking data from Flight Radar24, the plane, operated by Azerbaijani Silk Way airline, returned to Baku on Wednesday from the Israeli Air Force’s Ovda base. As usual, the airline did not disclose the contents of the cargo transported to Azerbaijan.
Ovda is the only airfield in Israel authorized for the transportation of explosives, and it has become a key route for Israeli weapons and ammunition exports to Azerbaijan. Over the past two decades, these exports have amounted to billions of dollars, making Israel one of Azerbaijan’s main arms suppliers.
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Azerbaijani planes have landed at Ovda airbase at least 92 times between 2016 and 2023. The frequency of these flights increased before Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military offensive, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, which resulted in Baku’s occupation over Artsakh.
Despite the outbreak of conflict in Gaza in October 2023, which saw Israel seeking substantial military aid from the United States, the Ovda-Baku flights have continued. The Armenian investigative outlet Hetq.am recorded approximately a dozen such flights between November 2023 and April 2024.
Israeli arms supplies to Azerbaijan also continued during the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war, where Azerbaijani forces made extensive use of Israeli-manufactured attack drones and multiple-launch rocket systems. During a visit to Israel in March 2023, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov expressed his government’s gratitude for Israel’s support during the conflict.
Azerbaijan’s military spending is projected to reach $3.7 billion this year, compared to Armenia’s defense budget of $1.4 billion. Despite this military imbalance and Azerbaijan’s ongoing arms buildup, Baku has criticized Armenia’s recent arms deals with countries like France. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan dismissed these criticisms, stating at a news conference last week: “They say that the European Union, the West are arming Armenia, but Azerbaijan is buying weapons from Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Italy, France’s neighbor. Why can Azerbaijan get weapons from Italy but Armenia can’t get them from France?” At least three EU member states have military-technical cooperation with Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan did not mention Azerbaijan’s extensive arms deals with Israeli manufacturers, which prompted Armenia to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv just days after the 2020 Artsakh war erupted. Despite the continuation of Azerbaijani-Israeli military cooperation, Armenia appointed a new ambassador to Israel in April 2022.
