The New Eurasian Drone Wars

Azad Garibov

Four-Day War, Eurasia

One the distinctive features of the recent escalation was the extensive use of sophisticated military hardware, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Serious renewed violence broke out between the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan last month (April 2–5, 2016), with fighting in the separatist Azerbaijani region of Karabakh reaching levels not seen since the ceasefire of 1994. One the distinctive features of the recent escalation, which has come to be known as the “Four Day War,” was the extensive use of sophisticated military hardware, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as for use in ground attacks. In fact, the Karabakh conflict may be the first-ever inter-state armed conflict in which drones have been deployed on specifically combat missions. While reports of downed enemy drones in and around Karabakh have been fairly commonplace in recent years, the deployment of UAVs to the so-called “Line of Contact” (LoC) received ample media coverage only after the recent fighting. Azerbaijan has downed three Armenian drones since the beginning of April, one of which was destroyed during the Four Day War (Trend, April 3), while two others were shot out of the sky in the following weeks (Azvision.az, April 7, Ann.az, April 19). Armenia claimed it had downed ten Azerbaijani UAVs during the four days of fighting, but only two cases were confirmed to date with video and photos (Ng.ru, April 22).

(This story was original published in the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Monitor)