Armenia never possesses combat-ready army - expert

“I will say very painful things about our army, and some may disagree, may condemn me, but I went through all this personally and saw everything personally. I think I have the right to talk about it. During my service in the army, the unit I served consisted of about 100 servicemen, and I have not seen more than 70 servicemen throughout those two years.”

Analyst David Stepanyan said this on 1inTv channel when commenting on information about the intention of the Armenian government to create a professional army, Caliber.Az reports.

“Some 30 per cent of the unit served only on paper. That is, they remained at home, made endless business trips, were in hospitals. They did not serve in the army. However, they received all the financial support that soldiers received, and I think it was actually quite a lot of money. A completely different question is how much of it reached us – the military personnel. That is, we had an army on paper for many years. The 50,000, 60,000 or 70,000 figures about the number of the army did not correspond to reality. We have never had an army in service and capable of carrying out combat missions. I'm not talking about quality yet. I think it's time to find solutions, and we must have a professional army, which consists of contract soldiers. When reporters asked [former defence minister] Seyran Ohanyan what caused the fact that only children from poor families served in frontline posts and in border military units, he boldly replied that he did not know.

“That is, while acknowledging this fact, he directly avoided answering. However, I know because people gave money, and this money went directly to various instances, doctors, commissioners, officials of the Armenian Defence Ministry, who were involved in bribery,” the analyst added.