MOSCOW, June 18 (UPI) -- Russia began shipment Tuesday of up to $1 billion worth of military equipment to Azerbaijan, Russian Defense Ministry officials said.
The shipments fulfill contracts signed in 2011 and 2012, the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper Vedomosti.
The equipment is worth between $700 million and $1 billion, and includes 94 T-90S tanks, about 100 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, 18 Msta-S howitzers, 18 Smerch rocket launchers, 18 Vena "floating mortars" and six TOS-1S Solntsepek multiple launch rocket systems, the newspaper said.
Russian military support for Azerbaijan is likely to provoke tension between Russia and neighboring Armenia, RIA Novosti said. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still in dispute over the sovereignty of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region bordering both countries and the center of a bloody war in the late 1980s in which more than 30,000 people died.
