According to military expert Karen Vrtanesyan’s sources, the debates between Armenia and Russia regarding the acquisition of “Iskander” has been initiated long ago. “It is a history of years. It was much earlier than the April war,” assured the expert. While the Armenian public is interest to know whether the “Iskander” causing so much excitement in the military parade on September 21 is under the disposition of the Armenian army or not.
Mr. Vrtanesyan brought a number of arguments to confirm that “Iskander” really is at the disposal of the Armenian side, “The kind of weapon is not a wedding car to rent. This weapon was driven by the Armenian staff and the staff for driving this kind of weapon is not trained just for driving a car on rent. In addition, both the Russian and Armenian sides stated that it is the armament of the Armenian Armed Forces and I do not see any reason to doubt and the signs were also of the Armenian armed forces.” To the question of whether “Iskander” was one of the military equipment sold to Armenia for the Russian 200 million dollars loan or a military equipment acquired earlier, the expert found it difficult to answer but citing the Russian publications, he said that the “Smerches” were definitely obtained under the loan agreement.
According to him, the military equipment demonstrated during the military parade dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Armenia’s independence was a propaganda action, “The enemy was shown a part of Armenia’s potential capabilities, people are inspired.” Former deputy head of the National Security Service, Gurgen Yeghiazaryan, opines that the “Iskander” should not be demonstrated during the parade, “This parade raise much more questions than answers. The remaining measures to restrain Azerbaijan’s military aggression were more than sufficient, while “Iskander” was to be a surprise for the enemy.” As a result, according to Mr. Yeghiazaryan, several hours later the military parade in Yerevan, Aliyev called a meeting at the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and gave a very bad assignment, “He instructed that to find out the parking ground of “Iskander”.
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Karen Vrtanesyan clarified, “It is a wrong information, Aliyev was not present at the mentioned discussion, although it is written that it was by his instruction, while the Azerbaijani Defense Minister was present there. They gave sufficient nervous reaction, although it was not explicitly mentioned the name of “Iskander” systems but their nervousness was associated with “Iskander”. The whole point of the discussion was to announce that they have the ability to hit the targets in Armenia too. Actually, yes, they can hit some targets, but they do not have precise and far-reaching arms like “Iskander”.” According to the expert, “Iskander” was not used during the four-day war in April because firstly it was a question whether we had “Iskander” in April or not, on the other hand, “Iskander” is to solve other types of problems, “The war did not reach the scales, and it makes no sense to use “Iskander” on the frontline.”
Why did Russia prefer giving “Iskander” to Armenia when wealthy states have expressed a desire to purchase it, in response to this question, Mr. Vrtanesyan replied, “Russia has announced that it organizes the supply of weapons in a way that the balance of forces in the region is not broke. It seems to me that the supply of “Iskander” should be viewed right in this context. They are trying to pursue two goals.” As observed by Mr. Yeghiazaryan, “There are questions that cannot be answered today. There are questions that should not be talked about by the media. Today, it became clear that one “Iskander” several dozens of times exceeded the types of weapons, which Russia had sold to Azerbaijan”.
Arpine SIMONYAN
