Officially, Yerevan declares that the Russian Federation is its main strategic partner and it won’t even refuse to use its military force to protect the territorial integrity of Armenia.

This is proven by the Armenian-Russian bilateral agreement and the presence of Russian military bases in Gyumri and Yerevan. But the Kremlin’s double-dealing is beginning to cause even more surprise.
On November 12, in Mountainous Karabakh, the Azeri military shot down an Armenian combat helicopter Mi-24 (known as ‘Crocodile’ by Russia and Hind D by the West) with the help of a portable missile system.
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense has disseminated what looks like videos recorded by soldiers’ mobile phones showing the shooting-down of the Armenian Mi-24. Despite the low quality of the film, it depicts Azeri military launching a missile and shooting down the Armenian ‘Crocodile’ flying at a low altitude.
The helicopter crew did not survive the explosion, yet Baku still granted a decoration to the Azeri gunner. Despite the 1994 ceasefire agreement, such incidents are far from uncommon in Mountainous Karabakh. But the November 12th incident is epically notable because the Azeri gunman shot down the Armenian Mi-24 presumably with the newest ‘Igla’ (Needle) transportable missile system which Russia sold to Azerbaijan several years ago.
Exactly one month before this incident, on October 13 while meeting with President Ilham Aliyev, Russia’s Minister of Defense, Sergey Shoygu, declared: “Russia is planning to set up a system for collective security in the Caspian Sea region together with Azerbaijan.”
So, what is going on? Eighty percent of Azerbaijan’s military purchases come from Russia. Azerbaijan is becoming a more strategic military partner of Moscow in the Southern Caucasus, the Caspian Sea region, which is definitely not a good thing for Yerevan.
Deepening of relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, even after these two countries could not agree on mutually running the Gabal radio-location station, is revealed by the fact that last month two Russian Navy warships paid a friendly visit to the Baku Bay. Furthermore, in 2015 Baku is planning to purchase new shipments of modern weapons from Russia.
Despite the recent Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontation and the new political measures being carried out by Russia in the Southern Caucasus, the Mountainous Karabakh region still isn’t likely to spiral into a hot zone, though such incidents are likely to continue.