During the military operations that took place in Tavush last week, the Azerbaijani side has suffered around 200 million dollars in losses as a result of the destruction of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This is the preliminary calculation of the Armenian side. Armenian air defense units shot down 13 Azerbaijani unmanned aerial vehicles in the border area of Tavush, and one more was shot down in the northeastern section of Artsakh, the head of the staff of the Air Defense Forces Command of the Armed Forces, Garik Movsisyan, reported on July 21.
“Basically, all the UAVs were shot down in the defense zone of the third army corps, with the exception of one unit, which was brought and presented at the exhibition; it was shot down by the calculations of the Defense Army on the morning of July 17,” Movsisyan stated.
According to the representative of the Ministry of Defense, 4 of the Azerbaijani unmanned aerial vehicles were reconnaissance drones, and 10 were strike drones. The head of the Military Aviation University, Daniel Balayan, said that the loss of the Israeli-made Elbit Hermes 900 UAV, whose value reaches up to 30 million dollars, was a particularly serious loss for Azerbaijan: “Each UAV has a value of several hundred thousand dollars, and the larger ones are worth millions. Besides that, the most expensive thing, one could say, is human losses for everyone, as it has also suffered very large human losses at the same time.”
The Ministry of Defense today displayed the remnants of Azerbaijani unmanned aerial vehicles at the Military Aviation University. Next to the newly shot-down devices, there were also older ones. According to representatives of Armenia’s defense department, since 2016, the Armenian side has shot down about 40 Azerbaijani unmanned aerial vehicles: “Apart from the designed part of the ORBITER-3, the bodies, the entire electronics are Israeli; as for the strike and missile ones, everything is the product of the Israeli companies Elbit and Aerospace. It is no secret to anyone that they cooperate and have installed a joint factory in Azerbaijan.”
The Azerbaijani side, however, continues to deny the Armenian side’s statements about its shot-down unmanned aerial vehicles. On the contrary, Azerbaijan’s defense department declares that during last week they shot down Armenian drones. Nevertheless, Armenia’s Ministry of Defense denies those statements.
