Executive Summary
On 9 July 2026, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Defence, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov met in Baku with a delegation led by the National Armaments Director of the Italian Ministry of Defence, Admiral Giacinto Ottaviani. The meeting reaffirmed the importance of their existing partnership. While historically based on energy trade, bilateral relations have evolved into a multidimensional partnership in the post-2020 period, with defence and military cooperation constituting an increasingly prominent pillar. These developments are contributing to changes in the regional security environment, potentially affecting the evolving military balance of power in the South Caucasus.
Key Points
- Italy is evolving into an important Western defence partner for Azerbaijan, supporting Baku’s modernisation and diversification strategy, while reducing its dependence on Russian military equipment.
- The partnership exemplifies how Azerbaijan strategically uses its energy resources to strengthen its military capabilities within a changing regional security environment.
- Growing ties with Italy also strengthen Baku’s diplomatic position in Europe, providing a greater scope to advance its interests in the South Caucasus.
Analysis
Baku’s military partnership with Rome reflects Azerbaijan’s 2010 Military Doctrine, which stresses the need to modernise the armed forces. Italy provides Azerbaijan with access to modern Western military technology and the wider European and NATO defence industry. At the same time, Baku has sought access to Italian defence systems, such as the C-27J Spartan transport aircraft and M-346 Master advanced trainer aircraft, without entering a formal alliance, thereby preserving its strategic autonomy in line with its membership of Non-Aligned Movement.
Cooperation with Rome forms part of Baku’s multi-vector defence strategy. The effectiveness of this approach became particularly evident during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijan’s diversified partnerships, among which those with Turkey and Israel were the most consequential, were among the factors that contributed to its victory over Yerevan. Italy now provides Baku with an additional Western defence-industrial partner, complementing this broader strategy, which also includes partners such as Pakistan and Belarus. Reducing dependence on Moscow, Baku’s principal defence supplier until 2018, remains an additional important objective for Azerbaijani policymakers.
Baku’s expanding defence partnerships should be viewed within a broader regional process of military transformation. Yerevan has also sought to strengthen its defence posture and diversify away from Russia, including through cooperation with France and India. Taken together, these developments point to an increasingly pluralistic and competitive regional security environment.
The growing defence partnership with Italy also exemplifies how Baku strategically employs its energy resources to support the expansion of its military capabilities. Azerbaijan has evolved into Italy’s second-largest supplier of natural gas, playing a central role in Rome’s energy-security strategy, mainly through the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. Azerbaijani energy investments in Italy have further increased this interdependence, providing the foundation for the expansion of bilateral relations into the defence sector.
Azerbaijan’s strategic use of energy resources has strengthened not only its economic position, but also its diplomatic room for manoeuvre on issues concerning the South Caucasus. This was illustrated in 2024 when Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Edmondo Cirielli criticised French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné’s statements on France’s support for Armenia’s territorial integrity, arguing that such actions risked undermining normalisation efforts.
Policy Implications
- Italy should assess how further defence cooperation and arms transfers to Azerbaijan affect the existing asymmetry in the regional military balance, while taking into account Armenia’s efforts to strengthen and diversify its defence capabilities. Such an assessment could help Rome anticipate the security implications of this partnership with Baku and reduce the risk that further military cooperation contributes to renewed regional tensions.
- To reduce the risk of a security dilemma, regional actors should promote confidence-building measures and mechanisms for military transparency.
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