Armenia confirmed earlier that the Iskander missile was intercepted by the Azerbaijani military a few days before the end of the armed conflict in Karabakh. As it turned out, the Russian tactical missiles were intercepted by the Israeli-made Barak-8 air defense system.
The Iskander ballistic missile was launched by Yerevan directly at the capital a few days before the ceasefire.
The Barak-8 missile defense system operated by the Azerbaijani armed forces, the Israeli Barak-8 shot it down repeatedly with high accuracy. The continued use of these missiles could indeed exacerbate the situation on the ground. And I think, among other things, this convinced the leadership of Armenia to agree to a ceasefire, said Colonel-General of the Armenian Army Movses Hakobyan.
A senior Armenian military official who has taken part in the war told journalists in November that Yerevan indeed fired the short-range missile at Azerbaijan.
“[It] was used during the war though I will not say where,” Colonel-General Movses Hakobyan said, according to a report by Bloomberg, after he had stood down as head of the defence ministry’s military control service.
It is noteworthy that the Russian Tass news agency confirmed that Iskandar was indeed supplied to Armenia without elaborating further and Iskander complexes were involved in the conflict on the territory of Karabakh a video recording on which you can see the launches of two Iskander missiles.
Russian experts draw attention to the fact that if one of the tactical missiles in Russia was indeed intercepted by an Israeli-made air defense system, this could create quite big problems for the defense capability of Russia, since in recent years the Russian side has been betting precisely on the development of tactical missile systems.
Azerbaijan has an operational land-based version of Barak 8-system with 12 launchers and 75 surface-to-air missiles, which could have been used to take down missiles like the Iskander. The system was acquired by Azerbaijan in 2018 and has been tested.
According to the report, Israel sold to Azerbaijan considerable amount of different types of weapons, including IMI’s EXTRA Guided rockets, Aerostar UAVs, Elbit Systems’ ATMOS self-propelled artillery system, Spike missiles (including NLOS-SSM), Elta’s EL / M-2080 and EL / M-2288 radar systems, IAI’s and Elbit’s UAVs, IAI’s LAHAT anti-tank missiles and “Shaldag” ships.
The Harpy ‘Kamikaze’ UAV should be added to the list as well. It was put to operational use by Azerbaijan during the recent conflict with Armenia (according to media reports in Azerbaijan, six such drones were used). Apparently, this is all part of a deal signed in 2012.
A publication on apa.az claims that T-72 tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles used by the Azerbaijani Army were modernized by Israeli companies. Furthermore, Azerbaijan received an order to produce 30 “Aerostar” and 30 “Orbiter-2M” drones basing on Israel’s license.
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