The QFAB-250 LG laser-guided bomb. Source: the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan Republic.
Azerbaijan had secretly supplied Ukraine with dozens of precision-guided bombs, documents leaked by the Iraqi Sabereen News Telegram channel on July 27 revealed.
According to the shipping documents, the bombs were sent by the CIHAZ Industrial Association, which is owned by the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan, to Ukrspecexport, a Ukrainian state-owned arms trading company.
Ukrainian airline Meridian, that has links to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, shipped the bombs from Khartoum Airport in Sudan to Rzeszow Airport in Poland.
Click to see full-size image. Source: Sabereen News (t.me/sabreenS1).
The bombs were reportedly shipped in April, more than a month after the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Azerbaijan, which enjoys strong relations with Russia, chose to take a “natural” stand on the conflict.
In the documents, the cargo is designated as 31 “Precision Guided Air Bomb” and one “Precision Guided Air Bomb INERT”. Each bomb weighs 270 kilograms. The weight suggests that the bombs were of the QFAB-250 LG type.
Click to see full-size image. Source: Sabereen News (t.me/sabreenS1).
The QFAB-250 LG was jointly developed by the Research Institute of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry and Turkey’s defense giant ASELSAN. The bomb, which weights 270 kilograms, is guided by semi-active laser. It has a circular error probable of less than 10 meters and a range of 12 kilometers.
The precision-guided bomb was designed to be carried by Soviet Su-25 fighter jets. The Ukrainian Air Force still operates an unknown number of Su-25s.
As of now, there has been no comment on the leaked documents by Russia, Azerbaijan or Ukraine. Moscow, which made many warnings against supplying advanced weapons to Kiev, may have known of the secret shipment since April. The Russian reaction to the Azerbaijan step is yet to be known.
