Activity of the Turkish Air Force within Armenia and beyond its border

In parallel with the military operations launched on September 27 along the border between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, the Turkish Air Force is becoming active on the border with Armenia.

The Fact Investigation Platform has already referred to the active movements of the military air force from Turkey and Israel to Azerbaijan, and the active preparation of military operations by Azerbaijan.

The defense ministries of the Republic of Artsakh and Republic of Armenia have already informed about Turkish helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles in the skies of Artsakh and Armenia. The information available in the open source proves these allegations.

The Turkish Air Force was on the Armenian border before the start of the fighting

On September 20, one week before the fighting started, Turkish reconnaissance drones were flying near the Armenian-Turkish border, near Mount Ararat and near the Araks Valley. According to the Flightradar24.com website, on September 24, the drone flying in the same area crossed the Armenian border and reached the city of Vedi.

The blue line is the trajectory of the drone flight

On the day of the start of the fighting (September 27), the Turkish CENAH01 reconnaissance drone was in the territory of Armenia for almost the whole day, reaching the shore of Lake Sevan. The UAV was in the Armenian sky for a long time, presumably gathering intelligence data.On the same day, a Turkish Baykatar TB2 UAV was near the border.

On September 28, Turkish reconnaissance Baykatar TB2 UAVs were spotted near the border with the Republic of Armenia at different times.

The area bordering Shirak region is being observed

Before September 29, the drones and planes of the Turkish Air Force that we observed were mainly in the vicinity of Ararat and Gegharkunik provinces. On September 29, the Bayraktar TB2 reconnaissance UAV was already near the border with Shirak Province of Armenia, in the direction of Gyumri. The UAV had taken off near Ankara. The possibility to conduct long-haul flights is a characteristic of Turkish Bayraktars. On the same day, another UAV was flying near the foothills of Mount Ararat.

Following the flight path of most of the UAVs, we notice that they are flying near the Beştaş Hudut Karakolu Military Base near Beştaş.

In some cases, the UAVs were taking off from the depths of Turkey, flying a long way and reaching the border with Armenia. Thus, one of the UAVs started the flight from near Tekirdağ to the Armenian border via Aleppo.

Issues with the flight monitoring platform

The Swedish website Flightradar24.com is the only platform that allows you to get as complete information as possible about the flights, their destinations and the flying planes. Established for the study of civilian flights, in some cases it does not recognize the data of military aircraft and UAVs. Turkish Air Force (TUAF) warplanes and some drones are recognizable by the radar, but if the aircraft has special protection or flies outside the radar observation area, the platform does not record the flight path. Such cases are also observed in the case of Turkish planes.

In addition, since September 27, when the media and social media users began to actively cover the activities of the Turkish Air Force at the border, the website failures became more frequent. On September 29, the platform reported on its Twitter page that the website had been under hacker attack for several days. The hypothesis that the site was attacked by the Turkish side was discussed on social networks.Thus, evidence available in the open sources proves that in the war that started on September 27, Turkey is not only providing “moral” support, as the President of Azerbaijan states, but is really partially involved as a warring party.

Ani Avetisyan