Azerbaijan allegedly secretly gave Ukraine MiG-29 fighter jets, and the government in Baku officially announced that it sent only humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

Several photos that would confirm this were shared by the administrators of the CaucasusWarReport page, which, like the much more well-known OSINTtechnical page, uses information from open sources. However, in this case, it is not clear where they got the photos showing the repainting of Azerbaijani fighter jets in the colors of the Ukrainian Air Force.

CaucasusWarReport claims that at least 3 MiG-29 fighter jets were allegedly donated to Ukraine and repainted at a repair facility in Lviv before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on February 24. The administrators of the page remind that the hangar was attacked by Russian troops in February, but note that MiGs were already in service with Ukrainian pilots.

Officially, the planes were sent to Ukraine under the pretext of “repair and maintenance” because the government in Baku did not want to anger Moscow.

CaucasusWarReport also notes that so far there is speculation that Azerbaijan has given or is unofficially going to give Ukraine MiG-29 fighter jets, 82mm 20H5 mortars and QFAB-250 guided bombs.

Azerbaijani mortars have already been used in the armed forces of Ukraine, as the government in Baku officially announced on February 28 that it will provide Ukraine with medical equipment and supplies, as well as free fuel for Ukrainian ambulances.

Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan

As Eurasianet, a news site specializing in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, noted at the time, just two days before Russia launched a war in Ukraine, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited Moscow, where he and Vladimir Putin signed a broad agreement to expand diplomatic relations. and military cooperation.

Signing the declaration “brings our relations to the level of allies,” Aliyev said after the meeting in the Kremlin. Russia was already the largest supplier of arms to Azerbaijan.

“It is deeply symbolic that the Declaration on Allied Relations was signed in the year when we celebrate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. Russian-Azerbaijani cooperation has strengthened and expanded over the past decades,” Vladimir Putin said after the meeting, according to a press release published on the Kremlin’s website.

A few hours after meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart, President Vladimir Putin has just recognized the independence of two separatist entities in eastern Ukraine — the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Azerbaijan, which strongly supports the principle of territorial integrity in view of its own situation with the Nagorno-Karabakh region, has still not recognized the two states created by pro-Russian separatists in Donbas.

During the March vote at the UN regarding the condemnation of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Azerbaijan abstained from voting for the resolution, as it did in April due to the exclusion of Russia from the International Human Rights Council.

But, as Geopolitical Monitor analysts note, relations between Moscow and Baku are not so simple.

February 22: Putin and Aliyev at the famous long table in the Kremlin (PHOTO: Kremlin Pool / Alamy / Profimedia Images)

Azerbaijanis oppose the war in Ukraine

At the level of ordinary people, Azerbaijanis have already demonstrated their opposition to the “special operation”. Hundreds of Azerbaijani citizens gathered near the Russian embassy in Baku after the start of the war, waving Ukrainian flags. Such protests also took place in March.

“Azerbaijan has historically had close relations with Ukraine, which expressed support for Azerbaijan’s international territorial integrity during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” explains Mary Glanz of the US Institute of Peace at the US State Department.

Putin’s war has put the government in Baku, which wants to show Washington that it values ​​bilateral relations with the US, in a delicate situation.

Since the start of the war, President Aliyev has held several phone conversations with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Azerbaijani troops conducted joint exercises with the US military from March 28 to April 1 as part of the partnership between the two countries.

In addition, Azerbaijan is interested in continuing to demonstrate that it is a friend of Europe. In view of the sanctions against Russia, the idea of ​​a corridor to transport energy from Central Asia to Southeastern Europe and from there to the rest of the region is now widely discussed.

The government in Baku also wants Azerbaijan to increase its own energy production to become a more important supplier to Europe.

Russia accuses Azerbaijan of violating the ceasefire agreement with Armenia

The situation is further complicated by the fact that 2,000 Russian troops were sent to Nagorno-Karabakh as a “peacekeeping” force immediately after the conclusion of a cease-fire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the winter of 2020.

In addition, the conflict caused strong anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Russia, as the Russians were culturally closer to Armenia, which lost the war, in no small part due to Turkey’s strong support for Azerbaijan.

In March of this year, Baku’s Prosecutor General’s Office opened an international investigation against Kremlin-friendly Russian lawmaker Mikhail Delyagin after he called for a nuclear attack on Azerbaijan’s energy and oil infrastructure.

Azerbaijani military in Nagorno-Karabakh (PHOTO: Oleksiy Kudenko / Sputnik / Profimedia)

This Wednesday, Russia officially accused Azerbaijan of violating the ceasefire agreement with Armenia.

“In the area of ​​Saribab, the ceasefire was violated by the armed formations of Azerbaijan,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

“The command of the Russian peacekeeping forces together with the representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia are taking measures to stabilize the situation,” he added.

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