Belligerent Yerevan on the verge of another fiasco amid army woes Azerbaijan resolute to respond

According to the press service of the General Prosecutor's Office of Armenia, there were 54 military fatalities among Armenian soldiers in 2023. This marks a significant 69% increase from the previous year. The year 2022 saw 32 cases of soldiers' deaths.

It is also worth mentioning the causes of those killed in the Armenian Army last year. For example, 19 out of 54 cases recorded in 2023 are combat casualties (in 2022 -14), and 17 cases implied violation of the rules of handling hazardous munitions and other materials, resulting in fatalities. Moreover, 7 cases are suicides. Two people died in car crashes, one each in lightning and electrocution and four in disease.

The statistics give a clear picture of the state of the Armenian army. As a result of its defeat in the 44-day war, it has lost a significant part of its fighting capacity. It has still not recovered from these losses. It has not been able to fill the gap in its armament that appeared both after the defeat in the 44-day war and as a result of the brilliant one-day anti-terrorist operation of the Azerbaijani armed forces in the Karabakh region. As we can see, the problem of the growing number of service-related deaths of Armenian soldiers has been added to all these problems. Armenian military experts agree that the very problems that caused the fiasco of the Armenian army in the war with Azerbaijan have not vanished: bullying, narrow-mindedness, and corruption that plagued the top-down command structure of the Armenian Defence Ministry. The fear of the Azerbaijani army has now been added to the list of problems.

In this respect, the statements made by Artur Khachatryan, a member of the "Armenia" parliamentary group, in a conversation with journalists in the National Assembly are revealing. He claims that after the disastrous defeat in the 44-day war, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is trying to justify his "concessions" with the threat of a new war. I would like to point out that we are talking about the return of our villages to Azerbaijan, which are still under Armenian occupation. And it is a mistake to talk about 'concessions'". "He is blackmailing the people to justify his policy of concessions. He says: four people have been killed, if we react there will be war, if we don't give in there will be war, if we don't give up the villages of Tavush there will be war. Of course, there is a danger, because as long as you are weak, as long as you are ready to give in, the enemy will always threaten you with war. If you say that the villages are Azerbaijani, Azerbaijan will say: give them back or we will start a war,' Khachatryan laments.

He was outraged by Nikol Pashinyan's meeting with border villagers on March 18. According to the Armenian Prime Minister, the refusal to delimit and demarcate the border means that there will be a war "at the end of the week". "And I know what will happen at the end of this war. Then, when we meet somewhere in Republic Square, you will say: 'OK, we are simple villagers, we had no information, but you knew everything'," Pashinyan said at the time.

I should note that two weeks have already passed since communication with Armenian villagers, and there is no war yet. However, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence has twice warned of the concentration of Armenian armed forces and military equipment in various directions of the notional Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Armenia seems to be pushed by its new masters to provoke a new military conflict before the Armenia-EU-US meeting on April 5.

Azerbaijan is prepared for such a situation, and if Armenia provokes them, they will respond harshly. Artur Khachatryan, a member of the Armenian parliament, wonders whether the Armenian society sees its army being strengthened. He believes the Armenian authorities are not doing enough to strengthen the army, despite conducting military exercises in the last four years. Instead of addressing this issue, the non-combat deaths in the Armenian army have increased significantly.

Back in August 2019, Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, made a bold pledge to the nation that the Armenian army would be ranked among the top twenty strongest armies in the world by 2050. However, many Armenian experts were sceptical about the feasibility of this promise, as they believed that Armenia did not have the necessary resources and capabilities to achieve such an ambitious goal. The 44-day war, the one-day anti-terrorist operation in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, and the current state of affairs in the Armenian army proved their rightness. Interestingly, Vahagn Khachatryan was one of those who five years ago criticized Pashinyan's promises as utopian. He was a retired opposition activist and a member of the board of Armeconbank. Now he is the President of Armenia, but his silence on the obvious problems in the Armenian army does not make them disappear.