Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces have prevented another attempted provocation by the Armenian army in the direction of the country’s Gazakh district, aimed at violating the state border, Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense said today.
The ministry said that this morning, the enemy, taking advantage of the foggy weather conditions, made an attempt to infiltrate the Azerbaijani army positions. "An UAZ with Armenia's reconnaissance and sabotage group inside was detected in time and taken under control by the Azerbaijani army," the statement says.
The defense ministry stressed that as a result of preventive measures taken by the Azerbaijani army, the infiltration attempt was suppressed. The enemy group was forced to retreat, leaving their vehicle on the territory. The vehicle was destroyed by fire opened by Armenians.
A political analyst, Candidate of Historical Sciences Oleg Kuznetsov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that since there is a full-scale war in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, such provocations are part of the military operations on the part of the occupiers. "Almost every day soldiers die on both sides as a result of gunfire, reconnaissance and sabotage groups regularly try to cross the front line, unmanned aerial vehicles are used - that is, all the attributes of the war. The last Armenian provocation in the form of an attempt to break into the positions of Azerbaijani troops, taking advantage of the foggy weather conditions, was insane, after all, for decades of positional war, the field positions on both sides have turned into continuous lines of defense, and an attempt to approach Azerbaijan was doomed to failure," he stressed.
Oleg Kuznetsov offered two explanations for this provocation. "On the one hand, the command of the Armenian Armed Forces needs more detailed information about the location of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces firing points in the first or second line of defense. Those soldiers in the car most likely committed some serious disciplinary offenses, and thus they were offered to atone for guilt. In this sense, I am sorry for these citizens of Armenia, because, by and large, they do not have a choice - either their own bullet or the Azerbaijani one. Here they are forced to choose death in the war, because then their families will receive a pension as families of soldiers killed on duty," the expert said.
"Although I do not rule out another scenario: it could be not a provocation, a group of Armenian soldiers tried to desert from the Armenian army and move closer to the positions of Azerbaijani troops to surrender. It is possible, although the nature of the positional war would inevitably have caused the first thought that the enemy was trying to commit a military diversion. Therefore, naturally, the car was destroyed," Oleg Kuznetsov added.
Political scientist Rovshan Ibragimov stressed that the need of the occupants in committing constant provocations on the line of contact of troops. "Recently, Armenia's losses in the border zone have been stable, and in order to somehow respond to these losses, the occupants are trying to commit such kind of sabotage operations with the aim of physically eliminating the Azerbaijani military and destroying the equipment. Due to the fact that these attempts fail, we should expect the activity of Armenia's Armed Forces will continue, despite the fact that they are considerably inferior to the Azerbaijani troops," he said.
The political scientist drew attention to the fact that diversions are part of Yerevan's domestic policy. "If statements about Yerevan's alleged commitment to a peaceful settlement of the conflict are made for the outside public, then such provocations are designed to calm internal public opinion. In Armenia, presidential elections will be held soon, after which the country will become a parliamentary republic. And failures on the front line only spoil the public's low opinion of the authorities. That is why Yerevan seeks to balance this with new operations that can be presented to society as the ability of the occupiers to implement any kind of fighting on the front line if necessary," Rovshan Ibragimov concluded.
