Azerbaijan could supply combat fighters to Ukraine - media

Ukraine has replenished its fleet of MiG-29 fighters from an unexpected source - Azerbaijan.

This information was disseminated by the specialized defense website The War Zone.

Referring to photos of military bloggers, the publication notes that the aircraft that appeared in the Armed Forces of Ukraine have a characteristic Azerbaijani camouflage - blue, gray and purple-gray.

The aircraft in the photo looks as if it is performing a combat mission: armed with medium-range R-27 air-to-air missiles and R-73 short-range missiles. Officially, Azerbaijan did not supply weapons to Ukraine and only declared humanitarian aid.

At the beginning of the war, there were Azerbaijani MiG-29s on the territory of Ukraine, which were being repaired in Lviv. The aircraft could have survived the russian attack on the Lviv State Aircraft Repair Plant in March 2022, its main hangar was destroyed. This plant was a priority target for russia, as it was the only one in the country capable of overhauling the MiG-29. The aircraft themselves came to Azerbaijan from Ukraine: it bought 15 used MiG-29 aircraft from it. Ukraine received them after the collapse of the USSR.

In the summer of 2022, military blogger Caucasuswar published a photo of three Azerbaijani fighters undergoing repairs at the Lviv Aviation Repair Plant. After the start of the russian invasion, the aircraft could probably be transferred to the Ukrainian army.

The appearance of former Azerbaijani MiG-29s in the Ukrainian Armed Forces coincided with a sharp deterioration in relations between Baku and Moscow. In the summer of 2025, dozens of ethnic Azerbaijanis were detained in russia, several of whom were killed, which caused a harsh reaction from Baku.

Another irritant was the shooting down of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in 2024. An Embraer 190 airliner flying from Baku to Grozny crashed near Aktau airport in Kazakhstan, killing 39 of the 67 people on board.

Against this backdrop, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Al Arabiya that the country was under "occupation" during the Soviet Union and stressed that Moscow still shows aggression. He expressed "deep disappointment" with russia's reaction to the downing of the Azerbaijani airliner and called the torture and murder of members of the diaspora "an unprecedented act against our people."

"We respond constructively and legally, but we never recognize manifestations of aggression or disrespect," Aliyev said.

Before the war, Ukraine had about 50 MiG-29s, but according to the OSINT group Oryx, 31 of them were destroyed. Ukraine receives MiG-29s from NATO allies. Poland has transferred 14 MiG-29s to Ukraine, Slovakia – 13. In March 2023, four Slovak fighters flew to Ukraine, becoming the first officially delivered tactical aircraft since the beginning of the Russian invasion. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/

Despite the arrival of more modern F-16s and Mirage 2000s, the MiG-29 remains a key aircraft for the Ukrainian Air Force: spare parts and trained crews can be found for it.

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