Yerevan militarises the South Caucasus
Armenia is a testing ground for Paris, New Delhi

INTERVIEWS  05 February 2024 - 10:48

Armenian Defence Minister Suren Papikyan in an interview with Public Television of the country voiced curious statements related to diversification of arms purchases, hinting at the emergence of new partners of Yerevan in the military sphere.

It is not a secret that the feverish arms race in the "country of stones" started immediately after Armenia's defeat in the 44-day war in Karabakh in 2020. Over the next three years, the Armenian side persistently knocked the doorsteps of many countries in hope of acquiring high-tech weaponry not inferior to what Azerbaijan has. For this purpose, Yerevan systematically increased its military budget. In 2024, it is planned at the level of 1.4 billion dollars.

According to Papikyan, "Armenia has made serious progress in the field of arms procurement."

"In this process, we have also acquired new partners at the level of major superpowers and other friendly countries. We are talking about France and India, but we are also talking about other partners, which I don't want to talk about yet," he said.

It should be noted that Paris and New Delhi have recently become the key arm suppliers of Armenia. However, taking into account the "crude" nature of many types of Indian weapons, it is likely that Armenia, becoming their first buyer, will turn into a kind of testing ground for Indian military engineers. At least, as Russian military expert Alexander Khramchikhin noted in a conversation with Caliber.Az, "it is impossible to assess the quality of weaponry that have never been tested in combat". According to him, Indian weapons are technologically inferior to Russian, Western and even Chinese ones.

"So far, India's ambitions are higher than its real capabilities," said Alexander Khramchikhin.

The expert also noted that the French-made Milan anti-tank missile system, which is in Armenia's military arsenal, are far from modern technologies. "These complexes are already 50 years old," Khramchikhin pointed out, noting that they were supplied to Armenia by Greece before the 2020 war.

In turn, another Russian Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin told Caliber.Az that Yerevan, buying arms from France and India, is trying to put eggs in different baskets at any cost and, by and large, it doesn't matter much who it buys weapons from, as long as it doesn't buy them from Russia.

"This is an attempt by the Armenian leadership to continue its policy of moving away from Russia and breaking relations with Moscow, including through the search for alternative arms suppliers. Yerevan has only two tasks. The first is that the weapons should be cheap. The second - they should have nothing to do with Russia," Shurygin said.

Discussing the topic of possible revenge on the part of Armenia in connection with Yerevan's efforts to militarize the region, the Russian military expert completely ruled out such a possibility, saying the military potentials of Armenia and Azerbaijan are not comparable. Shurygin is sure that any attempt at revenge would be suicidal for Armenia.

Caliber.Az