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As it is known, in the early morning of September 27, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched military operations against the Republic of Artsakh. A number of settlements were shelled, including the capital Stepanakert.

It is noteworthy that days prior to the beginning of the operations, Azeri propaganda machine expressed a tremendous activeness in the information field, trying to prepare a ground for possible military actions.

The Information Checking Center presents the main theses of Azerbaijani misinformation in recent days. The President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev recently stressed the concentration of the Armenian armed forces on the line of contact, characterizing it as preparation for war by Yerevan. This is a way of the adversary to justify one's own provocative actions.

After examining the misinformation spread by the adversary in the information field during the last days, we present the most circulated and common theses.

Aliyev’s announcement and the start of the information campaign

It should be noted that the Azerbaijani misinformation began to intensify after Ilham Aliyev’s September 19 interview with the media, when the latter accused the RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of carrying out various provocative actions in order to aggravate the Karabakh conflict. Two days after this statement, on September 21, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan issued a statement about Mammadov Elshan Ali oglu, a soldier killed on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, stating that the soldier was killed as a result of an “Armenian bullet.” This news spread in the Azerbaijani media with unprecedented speed, contradicting the common fact that the adversary is usually silent about its losses.

The Ministry of Defense of Armenia denied the opponent's assertion. Press Secretary of the Ministry of Defense Shushan Stepanyan mentioned that the Armenian side has no information about the killed soldier.

“We have repeatedly stated that the lack of risk reduction mechanisms on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is unacceptable and contributes to the accession of tension. As for the victim, we do not have such information,” the spokeswoman said.

Fake thesis of the deployment of Kurdish-Syrian militants in Artsakh

The next misinformation regularly circulated by Azerbaijan is related to the Kurdish militants stationed in Artsakh, which has been reproduced in recent days with new range and interpretations. It should be noted that this news was circulated through Egyptian news sites. The latter reported that the KWP militants were transitioning through the territory of Iran, from Syria to Armenia. However, in recent days, Azeri media, citing Turkish Haber7.com, wrote that the Armenian battalion, recently trained by the YPG / PYD in northern Syria, had been sent to Artsakh to take part in the fight against Azerbaijan.

It should be noted that the information was denied by the NKR Press Secretary Vahram Poghosyan on September 9. “By spreading such information, Azerbaijan is trying to contradict the confirmed information that their army is being replenished with extremists from Syria. I can surely say that it is an absolute lie and does not correspond to reality,” Poghosyan stressed.

The Armenian side, as represented by Gabriel Balayan, also denied this information.

Fake news about shooting down Armenian unmanned aerial vehicles

In the evening of September 20, a video made from the city of Shamkor was spread on Azerbaijani social networks, in which an Armenian unmanned aerial vehicle is allegedly being shot down. Hours later, the Azeri Defense Ministry confirmed the information that air defense units had shot down a military drone belonging to the Armenian Armed Forces.

The RA Ministry of Defense described this news as yet another Azerbaijani misinformation. Press Secretary of the Ministry of Defense Shushan Stepanyan particularly noted:

“Once again they try to present the desired as a reality.”

Old theses about the concentration of troops in Syria

The next news actively circulating in the information field was that Armenia had sent at least 450 servicemen to Syria to fight against the Turkish army. Azerbaijani news sites wrote about this, referring to the Israeli NZİV.net. It was also reported that the coordination of the actions of the Armenian mercenaries was carried out by the Syrian military intelligence general Mukhsan Nafnuf.

It should be noted that this news regularly appears in the information field. In 2018, Deputy Minister of Defense Gabriel Balayan had the opportunity to mention that it is not a question of a military group or a subdivision of the Armed Forces, but rather of humanitarian specialists, mainly medical staff and engineers. According to the latter, the specialists will help the residents of Aleppo, particularly the Syrian-Armenian community, to try to be useful to the civilian population with their professional knowledge. The Ministry of Defense also presented the legal explanations for sending a group to Syria.

It should be noted that 450 specialists of the humanitarian group have never been to Syria at the same time, as a rule, the groups consist of 70 members and they constantly replace each other. The allegations about the coordination of the Syrian military intelligence general are fake as well, as the group of specialists is under the supervision of Armenia exclusively.

Fake document on Artsakh residents’ evacuation

On September 24, social networks were launched to spread fake news. In particular, a document was sent to Armenian users via messengers of different applications, stating: “The Ministry of Defense of the Artsakh Republic warns the residents of Artsakh to be ready for an emergency evacuation.”

The spreading document was fake. To be sure of that, it is enough to pay attention to its composition and the mistakes present in the text. The Ministry of Defense has also confirmed that the document is fake.

By concentrating its forces on the border, Azerbaijan blamed the Armenians for the same actions

On September 25, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, during a meeting with EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar, stated that according to the intelligence data of Baku, the Republic of Armenia is accumulating troops on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

In response to this assertion, the RA Ministry of Defense denied the news, emphasizing that, instead, Azerbaijan is accumulating forces along the border. “Such destructive statements have a clear tendency to destabilize. The RA Armed Forces is engaged in daily training, it does not carry out any additional actions,” Sh. Stepanyan stated.

The leak of “confidential” information on haqqin.az

The recent scandalous misinformation was the article published by haqqin.az saying that based on Nikol Pashinyan’s instructions, secret negotiations kicked off in July-August of 2018. The article was translated and distributed by some Armenian media outlets as well.

Nikol Pashinyan, responding to the spread misinformation, noted:

“Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani leadership continues to go the old way by adding a new component. If you have paid attention, recently, the Azerbaijani media, government circles, the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan have introduced a new component in its propaganda campaign, the so-called disclosure of "confidential" information. I advise our Azerbaijani colleagues not to go that way, because if we enter that field and start spreading “confidential” information, I am afraid it will desperately destabilize the internal political situation in Azerbaijan.”