India's insidious plans may lead to addition of its armaments to War Trophies Park

On July 26, Caliber.Az published an article titled “Indian silhouette in exhausted Armenia’s armament. South Caucasus is not Bollywood,” which covered the launch of Indian arms supplies to Yerevan, based on data from two independent sources. The data was accompanied by eloquent video footage of a convoy of vehicles travelling through the Iranian “Nurduz” border checkpoint to Armenia.

Indian media also testify to the fact that India has rolled up its sleeves and started rearming the "country of stones”. Thus, according to the Indian defence research wing website, on July 22, the ammunition factory in Badmal shipped the first export of weapons. The nomenclature is medium and large calibre ammunition. Considering the fact that the Badmala plant is part of the Defence Production Department of the Indian Defence Ministry, it is clear that the matter was not limited to ammunition only - the exports also included guns, including 155-millimetre self-propelled howitzers MArG 155/39.

Moreover, the Indian defence research wing admitted that the manufacturer did not disclose specific details of the order, however, the conclusion remains the same - Armenia is the unnamed customer. Putting together all the puzzles - the publication in the Indian media, the facts mentioned in Caliber.Az’s previous article, comparison of the date of shipment in India and its passage through the Iranian-Armenian border - a single mosaic is formed. Namely, India is starting its game in the South Caucasus.

We will talk about India in a bit. For now, let's bring the cheered-up Armenians down to earth. The fact is that even if the supply of Indian arms to Armenia becomes large-scale, as it was, for example, in the past with Russian weapons, it will not be able to change the balance in its favour in any case. According to experts, to this date, no major foreign customer has shown any noticeable interest in heavy Indian weapons in recent years. Complex models of ground equipment don’t really work quickly or easily for Indian manufacturers.

For example, attempts to localise the production of T-90 in India eventually failed. And the MArG 155 self-propelled howitzer, which Armenia is also buying, has not yet undergone a test cycle in the Indian army. Pinaka MLRS will come to aid? Well, it is merely a copy of Soviet technology from the 1980s.

The Azerbaijani Armed Forces will not have much difficulty destroying these MLRS, even if they are deployed deep inside Armenian territory. Before September 2020, the Armenian army had more formidable, more manoeuvrable and more accurate weapons than these "Bollywood" toys. But did they help Yerevan in that war? So, while spearing hundreds of millions of dollars from the meagre state budget to buy Indian weapons, the Armenian authorities should remember that there is still room for new exhibits in the War Trophies Park.

Turning back to India, we cannot say that the Armenian-Indian games came as a surprise to us. It was expected that India would try to react in such a stupid way (i.e. by arming Armenia) to Azerbaijan's rapidly strengthening alliance with Pakistan and even influence Baku's position on the Kashmir issue, where we fully support our Pakistani brothers. New Delhi believes that by arming Armenia to the teeth, they can turn it into a deterrent force against Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Türkiye. Ridiculous? To us, it is. But İndians think otherwise. Their right.

The same considerations also explain India's destructive role in the Non-Aligned Movement, where, as we have already described, it has been pursuing an anti-Azerbaijani policy covertly. In particular, the Non-Aligned Movement was preparing a declaration of solidarity in connection with the attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in London. However, India and its ally Bhutan thwarted the adoption of this declaration.

Be that as it may, the growing military-technical cooperation between Yerevan and New Delhi, while posing a certain threat to peace and security in the South Caucasus, as it fuels Armenian revanchism, is not of particular concern to Baku.

We have enough forces, allies and capabilities to level the Armenian-Bollywood danger. After all, we used to watch Indian movies on TV, and soon we will see broken Indian equipment as trophies.