Although Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of acquiring weapons, its own declared priority is increase in the country’s military expenses

The Azerbaijani authorities continue to focus on the country’s military budget, making efforts to have a big share of expenses “for defense and national security”, but at the same time they regularly accuse Yerevan of arming itself.

Back in May 2023, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, announced that Armenia’s purchase of weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars creates new threats for the region. “Why is Armenia acquiring weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if it really wants peace with Azerbaijan?” he said.

And recently, on September 23, speaking at the first session of the Milli Mejlis of the 7th convocation, he announced that the Armenian side is massively arming itself, and at the same time conducting military drills jointly with foreign countries, including large states.

“Azerbaijan’s number one task is increasing the country’s military power,” he noted.

The Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, Ali Asadov, recently announced at the government meeting:

“In the coming years, the military expenses will be one of the major expenses of the state budget of Azerbaijan. According to the instruction of the head of our state, as always, the focus will be on building a modern army, increasing the potential of national security, strengthening and modernizing the defense industry complex in line with modern challenges.

The Fact Investigation Platform used open sources to study the state budget of Azerbaijan for 2024 and 2025 and the share of military expenses in it.

Thus, according to the state budget of 2025, it is expected that the revenues of Azerbaijan will amount to USD 21.5 billion (36.6 billion manats), which exceeds the indicator of 2024 by 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, expenditures should amount to USD 23.3 billion dollars (39.6 billion manats), which is 0.2 percent less than the revised budget forecast for 2024, but 8.8 percent more than in 2023. Azerbaijan plans to allocate around 3.9 billion USD (6658.3 million manats) for defense and national security in 2025. Accordingly, the planned expenses will make up 16.8% of the total budget expenses.

According to Azerbaijani media, this indicator is 6.6% less than the forecast for 2024.

According to preliminary data, in the 2024 state budget of Azerbaijan, defense and national security expenses amounted to 6 billion 421 million 47.42 thousand manats (3.777 billion USD with the exchange rate of that time), which is 17.4 percent of the total expenses of the state budget. Compared to 2023, expenses increased by 6 percent.

In 2023, actual budget expenditures for defense and national security amounted to 5 billion 854.8 million manats (about 3.45 billion USD) or 16.1 percent of total state budget expenditures.

In May 2024, the Azerbaijani media reported that the expenses allocated for defense and national security will be increased by 705 million manats (about 412 million USD). As a result, defense spending will increase from approximately 6.4 billion manats (more than $3.7 billion) to more than 7.1 billion manats (about $4.2 billion) in 2024.

MP from “Yeni Azerbaijan”, the ruling party at the previous convocation of the Milli Mejlis of Azerbaijan, Malahat Ibrahimgizi told the “Turan” agency that one of the main directions of the state budget of Azerbaijan has always been the military expenses. “The war ended in 2020, and we restored our territorial integrity. But during these four years Mr. President (Ilham Aliyev-Ed.) bought the most modern weapons in the world for the Azerbaijani army. Our army is fully organized, its supply and management have been brought up to NATO standards,” he said.

Thus, although Azerbaijan declares at every opportunity that Armenia is arming itself, developing its military power with the help of Western countries, nevertheless, that country makes every effort to enrich its military arsenal. After the 44-day war in 2020, Azerbaijan did not stop the replenishment, continuing military cooperation with its traditional partners, as the Fact Investigation Platform previously wrote.

Moreover, Baku recently hosted the 5th Anniversary Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition ADEX-2024 and the Securex Caspian 14^th International Exhibition for Internal Security, Safety and Rescue Equipment, which was attended by about 218 companies from 40 countries, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Italy, Israel, Slovakia, Russia, Turkey, etc.

And earlier it became known that Azerbaijan acquired the Italian C-27J Spartan aircraft.

Thus, despite the fact that in the 2025 budget, Azerbaijan’s military expenditures decrease by 6.6% compared to 2024, nevertheless, it is declared at the level of the leadership of the country that “the defense and national security of the country” are paramount for them, and they will spare no effort for this purpose.

Syuzanna Hambardzumyan