Belarus supplied Azerbaijan with air defence used in Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, OCCRP reports

Belarus sold air defence weapons and upgrades to existing systems to Azerbaijan which were then used against Armenia during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and subsequent clashes, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has reported, citing leaked documents.

The Belarusian arms manufacturer Tetraedr sold air defence weapons to Azerbaijan which Baku ‘actively used’ against Armenian drones, the OCCRP wrote on Tuesday, referencing internal reports.

One leaked Tetraedr report ‘credited the company’s Pechora-2TM surface-to-air missile systems with downing 11 unmanned aerial vehicles’, the OCCRP wrote.

‘The leaked records show that Tetraedr signed at least 16 contracts to supply and support Azerbaijan’s military. These include two contracts — worth over $13 million in total for repairs, maintenance, and support of Pechora-2TM systems — signed shortly after an October 2017 visit to the Belarusian capital of Minsk by Azerbaijan’s Defence Minister, Zakir Hasanov’.

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The Armenian Defence Ministry opted not to answer the OCCRP’s questions, citing security concerns, while the Belarusian Defence Ministry did not respond.

Nominally allies, as both Armenia and Belarus are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), relations between Yerevan and Minsk have been in freefall for years, largely over the latter’s support for Azerbaijan.

In 2024, Politico published a report based on leaked documents detailing the alleged supply of advanced military hardware from Belarus to Azerbaijan between 2018 and 2022.

‘Maybe Azerbaijan did buy them [weaponry]. But we were open to [selling to] Armenia too. Whoever paid the money got the goods’, Belarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenka said at the time.

Lukashenka has also directly attacked Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, claiming in January 2025 that he will ‘destroy Armenia’.

Earlier, ​​in June 2024, Pashinyan declared that no Armenian officials would visit Belarus while Lukashenka was in power, due to the latter’s support for Azerbaijan during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Protestors throw vegetables and eggs at Belarusian Embassy in Armenia

A group of protesters threw vegetables and eggs at the Belarusian Embassy in Armenia on Wednesday, calling on them to ‘get out of Armenia,’ in response to a statement by Belarusian president Aliaksandr Lukashenka that no one needed Armenians ‘besides us.’ During the protest, a statement signed by six political parties and civil society organisations was read out, urging the Armenian government to ‘immediately’ sever diplomatic relations with Belarus ’until the dismissal of dictator Lukashe

OC MediaArshaluys Barseghyan