Azerbaijan's armed forces will receive a brand new "kamikaze drone" next month, developed by the country's own arms manufacturers, according to Russian state news agency Itar-Tass.
The oil-rich Caspian nation's defense budget has seen several spikes in its recent history, as it is still locked in a frozen conflict over its Nagorno-Karabakh region with neighboring Armenia. Azerbaijan launched an annual arms expo called ADEX in Baku in 2015. It returned on Tuesday with a handful of new military gadgets on show.
One of the most novel items on display was the Azeri-made "Zərbə" (meaning "Strike") unmanned, flying drone, which can carry a general purpose bomb of about 2 kilograms. The drone, developed by the Ministry of Defense's own Sharq contractor, is set to be handed to the country's armed forces in the coming weeks.
"We have already conducted the testing," Ilgar Nazarov, general director of Sharq said. "We have struck a deal. The first delivery will arrive in October."
Nazarov did not say how many units the first delivery would consist of, however the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Defense Industry issued a joint statement Tuesday confirming they struck a deal for the military to receive "hundreds" of drones including the "kamikaze" drone and reconnaissance drones.
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