Armenia not able to pay in advance for Russian weaponry: expert

By  Trend

Recently, Russia provided Yerevan with an export loan to finance the supply of military equipment to Armenia worth $100 million.

This act of Moscow is rather contradictory and even violating the country's obligations as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is engaged in peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“As we know, Russia provides Armenia with weapons at domestic price under the Collective Security Treaty (CST) and this applies to all the countries involved in the CST. Russia also realizes successful sales of weapons to Azerbaijan,” Alexander Golts, military analyst, chief editor at Daily Journal (www.ej.ru), told Trend.

Speaking about Russia's policy regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Golts noted that Moscow is trying to repeat the British policy of the 19th century, when British arms were usually supplied to both conflicting sides in order to maintain a balance between them, so that Britain would have the final say in such conflicts.

“Arms trade is probably the most politicized type of trade. The arms selling country has a serious impact on the policy of the country that purchases those arms. The new loan to Armenia aims to maintain the balance, so that none of the sides could use its military superiority over the other one,” Golts said.

The analyst stressed that Armenia does not have the ability to pay for the weapons in advance, and Russia, in fact, pays to its own weapon developing plants.

“Azerbaijan conducted a quite successful military operation in 2016. Russia was one of the first countries to join the peacekeeping process to prevent military actions, since an armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia would be a collapse of the entire trans-Caucasian policy of Russia.”

On the night of April 2, 2016, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire from the Armenian side, which used large-caliber weapons, mortars and grenade launchers. The armed clashes resulted in deaths and injuries among the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijan responded with a counter-attack, which led to liberation of several strategic heights and settlements.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.