Military experts note systematic strengthening of combat positions by Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is moving its positions towards Armenian ones in case of a large-scale war, Samvel Agababyan, a military observer, has noted. The works on the border with Armenia have been actively underway for six months already, Ayk Khachikyan, a military analyst, has confirmed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 26,  the Armenian Ministry of Defence claimed that the Azerbaijani armed forces tried to bring their positions closer to the Armenian ones and opened fire in response to a warning. The Azerbaijani MoD denied the information and reported about the death of a soldier in another sector of the front.

The Azerbaijani party launched border engineering works back in October 2018, after replacing a motorized rifle brigade deployed there for border troops, Ayk Khachikyan, an analyst at the military-analytical portal "Razm.info", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to his story, the works of improving roads to positions and of strengthening the positions themselves were carried out.

"The fortifications, although not creating a direct threat, make it possible to dominate and weaken the capacities of the Armenian armed units to keep targets in sights," Mr Khachikyan has explained.

The distance between the Armenian and Azerbaijani positions, once measured in kilometres, is reducing along the entire frontline over these 20 years, Samvel Agababyan, a military observer and the author of the blog "Armenia's Military Industrial Complex", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "Initially, any Azerbaijani activity was suppressed, but at some point Armenian units were forbidden to stop the opponent's engineering works. As a result, the Azerbaijani party received a chance to shorten the interposition distance, sometimes bringing it down to 70 meters. This fact, along with other ones, resulted in the 2016 April war," Mr Agababyan has stated, adding that the strengthening of combat positions has to do not only with the intent to occupy the dominant position in a particular frontline section, but also with preparations for a large-scale war.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 28, 2019 at 08:53 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.