Politician: Armenia lacks army development model

Armenian lawyer, chairman of the “Fair Armenia” party Norayr Norikyan has said that the losses in the Armenian army in peacetime conditions are caused by many factors.

“The losses in the Armenian army in peacetime conditions are caused by many factors, beginning from the lack of necessary capabilities and ending with the lack of appropriate professional capabilities in the army, as well as unskillful leadership,” Norikyan told the Armenian media, Caliber.Az reports.

The party chairman noted that there is unskillful leadership behind any tragic incident because if the leadership could have given the right instructions, could have trained the appropriate specialists, could have sent personnel to the right place, etc., such incidents would not have happened.  

“When we hear the propaganda of these people that Armenia has already become a NATO member with the Russian Ural off-road vehicles, then propaganda and reality are so far from each other that we don’t know whether to cry or laugh,” he noted. 

“The personnel are transported by Ural off-road vehicles in Armenia in the 21st century. The roads are in a bad condition. Weather conditions are unfavourable. The technical condition of vehicles is unsatisfactory. These types of vehicles sometimes become obsolete: they are worn out, they are old, because they are used by 18-year-old boys, who do not have the appropriate professional abilities,” Norikyan said.  

“All this is also a consequence of a lack of compassion and professionalism. The most important thing is that there is no model for the development of the army. Our soldier does not know who his hero is. We are confused and we are making mistakes. There were up to 4,000 Armenian victims in the catastrophic Karabakh war. We think that after that the current victims are not victims,” he added.