Azerbaijan accuses Russia of arming Armenia since July clashes

An Azeri presidential aide said on Saturday that Russia has been supplying Armenia with weapons since a clash between the two former Soviet republics in July.

Hikmet Hajiyev, a senior adviser to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, said Russia has been “intensively arming Armenia” right after the July conflict, with Russian Il-76 strategic airlifters flying towards Armenia after July 17.

More than a dozen Armenian and Azeri soldiers were killed in July at the border between the two, which have long been at odds over Azerbaijan’s breakaway, mainly ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia has called the conflict is a highly sensitive matter.