Today Azerbaijan is marking the Day of the Armed Forces. The former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev set June 26 as the Day of the Armed Forces on May 22, 1998.
Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, established in 1918, existed only 23 months, it has done a lot in a short period of time. The country started the creation of the national army. At the same time, the situation in the region was extremely tense. The neighboring countries were openly expressing their plans to partition the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and take away its territories.
Since the first day of the creation of the national state, Armenia has made armed attempts to expand its territory at the expense of the Azerbaijani territories.
The Azerbaijani Armed Forces were formed by the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic on June 26, 1918. This decision was the legal basis of the first democratic country in the Muslim East to create its army. Following this decision, the government issued a decree on conscription in the country. Azerbaijan achieved significant results in creating its own armed forces in a short time, Trend reports.
The Supreme Council of Azerbaijan ordered formation of the Armed Forces on October 9, 1991. June 26 was declared the Armed Forces Day in accordance with the former Azerbaijani president's decree dated May 22, 1998.
Military parades were held on June 26, 2011 in Baku, in connection with the Armed Forces Day and the 20th anniversary of restoration of the country's independence and in 2013, on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the Armed Forces Day.
A political analyst, Candidate of Historical Sciences Oleg Kuznetsov, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, first of all noted that in the context of the Karabakh war the Azerbaijani Armed Forces have become a symbol of the Azerbaijani statehood. "We can say that Azerbaijan was created in parallel with its Armed Forces. Today the Armed Forces in Azerbaijan have a great authority, especially in light of the April events this year. Azerbaijan is perhaps the only country in the former Soviet Union, which Armed Forces have such a high authority," he said.
According to the political expert, despite the fact that Russia has experience of several victorious wars, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces enjoy even greater popularity and respect of the people, than Russian ones. "So, the Azerbaijani military is lucky, because they are completely surrounded with care, respect and reverence," Oleg Kuznetsov said.
At the same time, he recalled that the combat capability of the Azerbaijani army has risen to a new level in 2013, when Azerbaijan has received from Russia new models of heavy offensive weapons and defensive weapons. "Moscow is also actively supplying Baku with latest developments for the Navy and Air Forces. After modernization of its armed forces, Russia is actively promoting the modernization of both the organizational structure and the military command structure, as well as the structure of the combat training of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces," the political expert noted.
He pointed out that Azerbaijan is not fixated on a single source of military knowledge and weapons. "As the experience of the April events showed, the Azerbaijani servicemen actively and effectively use weapons, for example, Israeli-made anti-tank systems and unmanned aerial vehicles. It is very important that the various types of weapons produced by different states are successfully integrated into the structure of the Azerbaijani army. For example, the Armenian military cannot predict the effect of the use of not-Russian weapons in advance, without knowing its tactical and technical characteristics.Therefore, the Azerbaijani army surpasses the Armenian army not only in the quantity but also in the quality," Oleg Kuznetsov explained.
