On April 1, about two weeks after the meeting with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, on April 15, Nikol Pashinyan during a NA-Government question-and-answer session had informed.

“We had very long and detailed discussions and reached strategic agreements to deepen cooperation in various fields, the expression of which we will see in the near future.”

And today, during the briefing organized after the executive session, journalists asked Nikol Pashinyan whether there are military-technical agreements with Russia, does your statement mean that Armenia has an agreement to buy weapons from Russia, to which he replied:

“We have military-technical cooperation with Russia, we had it, which at some point was either interrupted or decreased, and we, yes, have an agreement to implement the previously reached agreements.”

Let us remind you that during the government session in September 2022, Nikol Pashinyan had announced.

“We have cases when hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid, but supply obligations to Armenia are not fulfilled, including by allied countries.”

Pretty much the same before this the statement Pashinyan also did this in the National Assembly, mentioning the obstacles to the purchase of weapons or the components of that process.

Առաջին՝ not all countries are ready to sell arms to Armenia,

երկրորդ՝ there are countries that are ready to sell weapons to Armenia, but there are countries that are not ready for the fact that Armenia will buy weapons from a country that is ready to sell them weapons.

երրորդ՝ there are countries that want and are ready to sell weapons to Armenia, but do not have the necessary weapons for objective and subjective reasons,

չորրորդ՝ Armenia is landlocked, and in most cases the transport component does not differ in its complexity from the previous components, sometimes it is more aggravated, including for objective and subjective reasons.

Meanwhile 168.am– tried to find out from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia through a written request whether the unfulfilled arms supply contracts were signed during the current government, or whether the contracts signed during the previous authorities were not fulfilled, or maybe it refers to the 44-day war and the period that followed it? More specifically, we recalled the agreements with the arms supply reached between the former RA Defense Minister Arshak Karapetyan and the then Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in August 2021, and asked Suren Papikyan whether they have been moved to the practical stage.

At that time, in response to our questions, from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia had reported that “the military-technical cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation and SRT acquisitions are carried out in a planned manner.”

But during these 4 years, we have regularly heard about the complications of Russian arms supplies and the non-fulfillment of contractual obligations by Russia. And in the background of all this, Armenia established military-technical cooperation with India and France.

The timing, motivation and interests chosen by these countries to sell arms to Armenia on different occasions we touched on therefore, we will not refer to them in this case. And the new military-technical reality was called diversification by the RA authorities. And in the concept of transformation of the Army, it is even mentioned in this regard. “Armenia needs combat-ready and equipped with modern equipment and weapons to protect the security, territorial integrity, integrity of the borders and the adopted peace agenda of Armenia, replacing the asymmetric and hierarchical metaphors of relying on one center with symmetrical and non-hierarchical metaphors with many centers. The preferred international military-technical format is the state-to-state approach, based on the single-window principle, excluding the involvement of commercial intermediaries.”

Isn’t it clear, what, to whom, what is the provision of mediated arms supplies?

For the sake of justice, it should be said that although the Chairman of the National Defense and Security Affairs Committee Andranik Kocharyan is also a supporter of the state-state military-technical cooperation format, but in recent years, when various government or government-affiliated circles accused the Russian side of deliberately not fulfilling the military-technical agreements undertaken with Armenia, and even creating obstacles, for example, to prevent deliveries from India to Armenia, he urged “we’ll get into a conspiracy theory and never get out.”

Kocharyan tried to explain the difficulties in supplying Russian weapons with the fact that the Russian-Ukrainian war is going on, and due to this, Russia itself needs weapons, let’s get it right. This was initially, and later, from time to time, he reported that the Russian side had started making some supplies within the framework of the contract.

During this period, however, according to our information, the cooperation of the RA-RF defense departments in the field of maintenance and even modernization of the military equipment in the arsenal of the RA Armed Forces has not been jeopardized.

And the fact that Armenia can acquire weapons from Russia, within the framework of previous agreements, became known to us at the end of last year, but such issues like silence. It is possible that we still have “Tor-M2KM” systems to receive.

And it is nothing that RA Defense Minister Suren Papikyan announced at the meeting with journalists almost in 2025.

“An agreement has been reached between the Ministry of Finance of Armenia and Russia that the amount paid by us should be reduced from the interstate debt, of course, it will be difficult to say in which part of its implementation, but a similar agreement has been reached.”

Anyway, the announcement made during the briefing was remarkable and, why not, useful? We cannot say to what extent we can consider it realistic that Pashinyan’s government will start using military-technical opportunities within the framework of the CSTO as well.

By the way, on one occasion two years ago, Andranik Kocharyan said in the context of Russia-Armenia relations that although Armenia does not participate in the CSTO exercises, the country continues to remain in the CSTO because they hope that «that system may one day be useful from the point of view of national interests of RA”.

It should be noted that since last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been offering CSTO members a rearming program.

“We propose to start a large-scale program to equip the collective forces with modern Russian weapons and equipment. Those samples of weapons have proven their effectiveness during real military operations,” he said.

A few days ago, the head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, announced that the CSTO has decided to put the main emphasis on the improvement of the unified air defense system. It is a different matter that today’s leaders of RA imagine the establishment of peace by making the army a reserve factor, when recently Moscow and Baku decided to settle the relations deteriorated due to the accident of the plane belonging to the AZAL airline.

Azerbaijan admitted that the downing of the plane took place in the airspace of the Russian Federation as a result of an unintentional operation of the country’s air defense system, and that there will be compensation.

Moreover, the foreign ministries of the two countries jointly statement it is mentioned. “The steps taken confirm the desire of both sides to build mutually beneficial cooperation in the framework of alliance cooperation.”

Let’s remind that after the 44-day war, in February 2022, the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev signed in the Kremlin Declaration on allied cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan, which brought a new level to the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia’s ally Russia.

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