The Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan does not distinguish Tochka-U from Smerch

On September 30, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan issued a statement that the Armenian side had allegedly struck from “Tochka-U” missile system. “Three of the fired missiles did not explode due to the age or low quality of military equipment,” the statement said.

The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan initially attached this photo as a proof.

The statement immediately appeared on Azerbaijani news websites, including the pro-government haqqin.az news agency.

It is noteworthy that the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s Twitter post said that the Armenian Armed Forces fired two missiles, three of which did not explode. The publication was deleted shortly after.

However, it turns out that the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan cannot even distinguish between missiles that are apparently different from each other. The missile in the photo is not a Tochka-U missile, but a Smerch missile.

This is what the Tochka-U missile looks like. As you can see, it is clearly different from the missile in the photo.

And the photo below shows a missile from “Smerch” multiple rocket launch  system, which is identical to the missile in the photo published by the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan.

It is noteworthy that later the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan removed the photo from the press release. The news sites that initially distributed the “evidence” changed the photo.

It should be added that the RA Ministry of Defense immediately denied the information about the use of “Tochka-U” missile system, noting that it is an obvious lie.

Hovhannes Nazaretyan