Inglorious biathlon: Armenian style of driving a tank Don't misuse it to carry apricots

The performance of the Armenian military at the tank biathlon turned into a shameful failure – an Armenian tank almost overturned, and another crew even rammed a rival tank.

The Armenian would-be warriors were subjected to criticism – Armenian society is boiling mad, discussing the new "exploits" of their tankers. Riding the few armored vehicles that remained in Armenia after the 44-day war, the Armenian military took part in the tank biathlon at the Russian "IAG-2022". But, as the Armenians themselves write on social networks, it would be better if they did not do this. The performance of the Armenian tankers turned out to be a shameful failure – it turned out to be not one of the worst performances, it was literally the worst. This episode from the life of their army, which is funny for others and sad for Armenians, can, meanwhile, become an illustrative lesson for that bunch of revanchists who call on official Yerevan to fight for "miatsum" once again.

Competitive performances of Armenian tankers in Russia turned into a real comedy sketch. All media outlets of the country began to accuse the Armenian Defence Ministry of deliberately withholding information about the participation of its military in the Russian tank biathlon because the competition turned out to be a disastrous failure for the Armenian team. So it is very clear why the Ministry of Defence is silent: it is ashamed of its military and clearly does not want to report on its own mistakes and failures.

"The official website of the Ministry of Defence of Armenia, in keeping with the best traditions of Artsrun Hovhannisyan, continues to hide information that is undesirable for the authorities," local journalists describe the situation, clearly annoyed by the "skill" of domestic tankers-losers.

According to Yerevan and other publications, the crew from Armenia performed extremely poorly, taking the last place in their group, and in the overall rating – a modest 9th place.

Then everything went very badly: during one of the competitions, an Armenian tank almost overturned, and another crew rammed the opponent's tank. According to Russian media, a tank under the control of the Armenian military rammed a combat vehicle of the crew from Laos at full speed. The tankers were not injured. The footage shows that the blow hit the rear of the blue tank of the Laotian crew.

Then, lamenting, they say disingenuously: "The Armenian tankers hit only one target out of five, fell out of range, and knocked down several fence posts - in short, they broke everything they could, demonstrating extremely poor combat training."

It is worth noting that the Armenian tank crews have never been particularly good at driving their combat vehicles, let alone firing them, usually demonstrating "miracles" in handling this formidable vehicle. For example, during training in 2014, the Armenian crew not only failed to fit into the steep curve of the tank biathlon track: the vehicle skidded and was thrown far behind the curb; moreover, it eventually overturned. This incident went down in the history of tank training, becoming a proverbial "Armenian turn."

Actually, the real "skill" of the Armenian tank crew was most evident in the events of the 44-day war, so perhaps, that is why now their worn-out "war horses" can be seen in large quantities in the Park of Military Trophies in Baku.

The question is why Armenia has been talking so much about its "valiant" army and the "heroes" of the First Karabakh War all these years, while it has never really learned how to fight. Maybe just because Armenia fought not with its own hands but with the hands of others in the First Karabakh War, and there is much evidence of this? In general, Yerevan always relies on outside help, even in the case of a new war. However, this is precisely the case when all the questions are answered.

The most interesting thing is that the Azerbaijani tankers, who also took part in the Russian military games, powerfully outplayed the Armenians. Our servicemen were among the best in the premier league, while the Armenian tankers were not included in it. That is, the skill gap is colossal. True, the Armenians have a modest excuse: their tankers are taking part in international exercises for the first time since the 44-day war.

"The two-year absence of Armenian tankers couldn't help but have a negative impact on the current figures. In particular, Armenia, among 21 countries, is now forced to perform in the second, weaker division. At the same time, Azerbaijan is competing with the strongest teams in the first division," the Armenian media bitterly write.

But even in this case, the Armenian journalists, throwing fire at their tank crews and the Defence Ministry, nevertheless, act "as Armenians do". They do not raise the issue globally, but as if lowering it to the local level. They remember somebody once said that it is difficult to have tank training in Armenia, as it is a mountainous country. Now, this is how they justify their failures. Well, on a serious note, it is quite obvious that such a unique tank "art" is a visual indicator of total corruption in the Armenian army, which went on practically all thirty years, especially during the presidencies of Kocharyan and Sargsyan, and the money allocated for the exercises was simply lived off by the generals. It was about the same time that the Armenian army began to be called "invincible".

It is clear why the Armenian generals are one of the richest strata in their country. However, all this rotten "general stratum" was perfect, as a test, revealed by the 44-day war and perfectly set the accents.

Azerbaijan didn't talk much but spent money on both exercises and training of our troops abroad, and certainly participated in various international military maneuvers more often than representatives of the Armenian "invincible" army. Azerbaijan now acts as a center for international military maneuvers at home. All this, of course, could not fail to bear fruit. So a tank is not a truck to carry apricots, drive it carefully and cautiously, Armenian tankers.