
Azerbaijan Increases Cargo Flights to Israel’s Ovda Air Base
Azerbaijan has increased cargo flights to Israel's Ovda air base, the only one where explosives may be flown into and out of the country.
The increase of such flights is worrying, given that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has recently ratcheted up his rhetoric complaining about Armenia’s defensive military procurements from countries like India, Greece and France and the fact that Azerbaijani flights to Ovda historically coincide with Baku unleashing military aggression against Armenia and Artsakh.
This was the case in the first half of 2016, when the April four-day war took place. A sharp increase in flights was recorded in the second half of 2020, against the background of Azerbaijan’s military offensive against the Republic of Artsakh. There was also an increase in flights in the second half of 2021, and that period coincided with the Baku military occupying strategic positions inside Armenia. The same happened in the second half of 2022, when Azerbaijan provoked another escalation in the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia.
In March 2023, the Israeli daily Haaretz wrote that between 2016 and 2023 Azerbaijani cargo planes landed at least 92 times at Israel's Ovda air base.
Azerbaijan: A Main Buyer of Israeli Weaponry
According to a 2021 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report, Russia was the largest exporter of major arms to both Armenia and Azerbaijan between 2011 and 2020.
Russia supplied nearly all of Armenia’s major arms during the period and almost two-thirds of Azerbaijan’s. Israel, Belarus, and Turkey were, respectively, the second, third and fourth largest suppliers of major arms to Azerbaijan in 2011–2020. Moscow accounted for 94 per cent of Armenia’s imports of major arms and 60 per cent of Azerbaijan’s during the period.
Israel accounted for 27 per cent of Azerbaijan’s imports of major arms over the decade 2011–20. Most of these deliveries took place in 2016–20, with Israel accounting for 69 per cent of Azerbaijan’s imports of major arms in that period. During the same period, Azerbaijan accounted for 17% of Israel's military exports.
The flights documented by Haaretz were conducted using Il-76 aircraft owned by the Azerbaijani cargo airline Silk Way Airlines. Although this is a private company that on paper belongs to one of the former Azerbaijani officials, however, as foreign journalists have found out, it was at least previously (if not now) associated with the Aliyev family.
It should be noted that Silk Way Airlines flights between Ovda and Azerbaijani cities are not exclusive, as this operator also periodically operates flights on the Baku-Tel Aviv-Baku route (see photo). Its subsidiary Silk Way West Airlines also operates flights on this route, using Boeing 747 cargo aircraft. The transportation of explosives through Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport is prohibited, given its proximity to the city of 4.4 million. (The Ovda military airport is in Israel’s southern desert region.)
Hetq followed up on the Haaretz data and found that between April and June of 2023 four more Azerbaijani aircraft touched down in Ovda.
(See: Azerbaijani Flights to Israeli Military Base Have Increased)
After this article, the flights continued. Between August 15 and September 17, 2023, eight cargo flights were made from the Israeli air base to Baku or Ganja. What followed was Azerbaijan’s invasion, on September 19, of what remained of the Republic of Artsakh and the forced deportation of the native Armenian population.
After the full occupation of Artsakh and its forced depopulation, the frequency of flights to Ovda decreased, but the flights continued. In total, in 2023, Azerbaijani cargo planes left this air base for their country nineteen times.
(See: Azerbaijani Cargo Flights from Arms Supplier Israel Continue)
Although there were no major clashes along the Armenia-Azerbaijan front line in 2024, for the first time since 2020, Azerbaijani aircraft made more than two dozen cargo flights from Ovda.
This is a clear sign that Azerbaijan is not reducing the pace of importing Israeli-made weapons.
Write a comment