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Azerbaijan Mistakenly Shoots Down Russian Mi-24 Gunship
Published 4 years ago
Azerbaijan has admitted to mistakenly shooting down a Russian military Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship on Nov. 9, 2020, resulting in the death of two Russian crew members and injuring a third.
The helicopter was shot down over the Nakhchivan region of Armenia, near the border with Azerbaijan, and not over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Russia maintains a military base in Armenia and the helicopter crew was a conducting a routine logistics operation at the time it was shot down.
Azerbaijan claimed responsibility for the negligent attack and said the Russian helicopter was flying at a low altitude during hours of darkness, outside of the air defense radar detection zone, and in an area they had not previously seen the Russian military operate. They thought the aircraft was Armenian.
Russia sells weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan and has attempted to broker peace deals between the two nations. The Nagorno-Karabakh region is internationally recognized as Azeri territory, but it is governed by ethnic Armenians.