Azerbaijan Sends Thousands of Shells to Ukraine After Russia Destroyed Azerbaijan’s Oil Facilities!

Today, the biggest news comes from Ukraine.

Here, Azerbaijan has officially launched serial production of Soviet-standard artillery shells and is now sending them to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And as Russians launched a deliberate strike campaign against Azerbaijani facilities in Ukraine, they have invertedly opened up a new source of critical munitions for Ukraine’s underused artillery fleet.

Azerbaijan is producing 122 millimeter and 152 millimeter shells compatible with Ukraine’s remaining Soviet-era artillery systems, such as the D-30 and Msta-B. These weapons still make up a significant portion of Ukraine’s inventory as over 350 systems remain in use, but their operational output has dropped due to limited ammunition. While NATO partners have focused on supplying 155 millimeter rounds to supply the artillery systems sent by the West, Ukraine’s access to Soviet-standard calibers has remained constrained, leaving entire artillery units either dormant or drastically underused.

Now, with Azerbaijan entering the picture, that equation changes, as Ukrainian officials estimate that if just half of the inactive systems are resupplied and redeployed, overall artillery firepower could increase by 20 to 30 percent in some sectors. To further achieve this, the Azerbaijani Avia-Agregat facility handling this production has been upgraded with Turkish-built Lasko-1000 and Lasko-350 presses to meet a production output of several thousand shells per day. As Azerbaijani outlets also report that negotiations are underway with Bulgarian defense firms to scale up casing manufacturing, their capacity is expected to expand greatly as local expertise and supply chains mature.

The new shell production comes at a time when Russia has started targeting Azerbaijani infrastructure inside Ukraine. Most recently, Russian drones struck the Svitanok Oil Trade depot in Odesa, a key facility owned by an Azerbaijani state oil company called Socar. Ten days later, another wave of drones hit the same depot, damaging fuel tanks, technical buildings, and pipeline connections. Russian targeting was deliberate and consistent, but Azerbaijan didn’t back down as just hours after the second strike, President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed that energy cooperation with Ukraine would continue regardless of Russian interference. Two days later, he ordered 2 million dollars in electrical equipment to be sent to Ukraine to help rebuild damaged power networks. This was not a neutral posture it was a clear political signal that Baku would not be deterred by Russian pressure.

But the real turning point came weeks earlier, when a Russian missile struck the area around Azerbaijan’s embassy in Kyiv, killing and injuring civilians. The attack came immediately after Aliyev made public statements backing Zelenskyy, and was widely interpreted as a threat meant to pull Azerbaijan back into line. Instead, it seems to have hardened Baku’s stance, because rather than backtrack, Azerbaijan accelerated both its political and material support. What followed was a deliberate sequence of escalations, first a diplomatic strike, then economic targeting, and now a direct military response through arms supply.

Baku’s decision to mass-produce shells for Ukraine also reflects a deeper calculus, as these calibers are still used by Azerbaijan’s own army as well. Any expansion of shell production now gives the country an insurance policy if tensions with Russia escalate. Should deterrence fail, Azerbaijan could immediately redirect its manufacturing output for its own needs. As such, Azerbaijan is essentially taking the same stance as Ukraine’s Western allies are gradually adopting. Production capacity created today for Kyiv could be used tomorrow to defend yourself or your allies, be it Azerbaijan, the Baltics, Poland or Finland.

Overall, Russia struck Azerbaijan’s energy assets to intimidate and isolate another post-Soviet neighbor, but the result has been the opposite. Azerbaijan is now shipping artillery shells to Ukraine, scaling up its defense industry, and aligning itself more closely with the Western security system. The move restores part of Ukraine’s Soviet-era firepower and sends a message to Moscow that threats no longer guaranteed compliance. For Azerbaijan and others on Russia’s periphery, the path forward is not neutrality, it is preparation.