“Most of the weapons acquired from Russia for 200 million dollars is not manufactured in the 80’s as Serzh Sargsyan is saying but even much older. There are weapons manufactured in the 60’s,” – said Daniel Ioannisyan, Program Coordinator of “Union of Informed Citizens”, in the conversation with Aravot.am. As for the loan conditions, according to Daniel Ioannisyan, it is necessary to consider the price of the supplied weapons, “This is the question actually, as the loan giver and arms supplier is one entity – Russia – and it is necessary to consider the price of the weapon sold. While the price of weapons is kept confidential from us and it is not published at what price is the weapon sold.”
In Daniel Ioannisyan words, there are many questions, such as whether these weapons are given at market prices, or more expensive or cheaper, “From Russia’s point of view, if we look at it, this is a very successful agreement for it will give an new energy and impulse to Russia’s military industry, in addition, a part of Russian weapons are the ones that are left in the warehouses, and in fact, they will sell the weapons stored in the warehouses to us, and then we will make installment payment for it … actually, the loan terms are not the question here. The loan terms are neither very good nor very bad. The question should be viewed from the military point of view: what are the preconditions for the arms given to us. Judging by some officially circulated information, it turns out that Armenia has no right to use most of relatively new weapons received from Russia in Nagorno-Karabakh.
For example, we witnessed how a responsible officer working on Smerch announced the Armenian Smerches were not used during the war in April because there was no encroachment on Armenia’s borders and the conflict was only on Artsakh border. This reveals the fact that S 300 systems although are old systems are located in Goris and not in Artsakh.” Our interlocutor also considers the enthusiasm over “Iskanders” too early, “I am almost sure that the “Iskanders” are not also designed for using in Nagorno-Karabakh because to attack Baku with “Iskander” systems, they must be moved to Stepanakert or Askeran.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
