Azerbaijan leader in South Caucasus for military power index

18 January 2021 15:28 (UTC+04:00)

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By Vafa Ismayilova

Azerbaijan has ranked 64 of 138 countries (power index: 1.0507) in the Global Firepower rating in 2021, the ranking’s website has reported.

As far as other South Caucasus countries are concerned, Georgia ranked 92, and Armenia – 100 in the rating.

When compiling the Global Firepower ranking, such factors as manpower, airpower, land strength, naval strength, logistics, financials were taken into consideration. An important place is given to the size of the military budget, external debt, foreign exchange reserves of a country, and its purchasing power.

The top three positions in the ranking belong to the US, Russia, and China.

It was earlier reported that the Azerbaijani Army has 126,000 active and 300,000 reserve personnel.

News sources reported in early September 2020 that Azerbaijan’s defence and security budget will amount to $2.33 billion (AZN 3.95 billion) in 2021, compared to $2.27 billion (AZN 3.85 billion) in 2020.

The Azerbaijani Armed Forces are equipped with state-of-the-art military equipment, arms, tanks, artillery, armoured vehicles, aircraft, air defence systems, helicopters, UAVs and battleships purchased from various countries.

Azerbaijan also produces local-made military products such as sniper rifles “Istiklal”, “Mubariz”, “Yirtiji”, “Yalguzag”, hand grenade against the tank “Gaya”, combat intelligence vehicles “Gurza”, mortars “Ashirim 5”, machine guns “HP-7.62” and “UP-7.62”, assault rifles “EM-14” and “Khazri”.

Azerbaijan defeated the Armenian armed forces in the six-week-long war that lasted from September 27 to November 10, 2020, liberating its territories that have been under occupation for about three decades. The Victory Parade in Baku on December 10, 2020, was attended by over 3,000 members of various types of troops. Up to 150 pieces of military equipment were demonstrated, including recently adopted military equipment, missile and artillery installations, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), air defence systems, warships, and boats. Some military equipment taken by the Azerbaijani armed forces as a trophy from the defeated Armenian armed forces was also demonstrated at the parade.