Moses Hakobyan's Assessment of the Proposal for Paying to Be Exempt from Military Service

The government today, on August 24, approved a new legislative proposal drafted by the Ministry of Defense, offering a monetary exemption from mandatory military service. Specifically, according to the proposal, four and a half months after the start of the conscription period, following the completion of military training, a conscript can pay 24 million drams to the state budget of Armenia and be discharged early from mandatory military service.

In an interview with NEWS.am, military figure of Armenia and Artsakh, General-Major Moses Hakobyan, stated that this proposal is unacceptable to him. 'I have a negative attitude towards it because I believe that everyone should serve the homeland, regardless of their financial situation.'

According to General-Major Hakobyan, this proposal will also affect the moral and psychological state of the army. 'It will negatively impact not only the army but also families, because the son will ask the father, 'What kind of parent are you that you didn’t exempt me from the army?' That parent will go into debt, take a loan, and get his son exempted from the military.'

As per the proposal, an individual will be able to make the payment after completing the military training phase, which averages four and a half months. In this regard, Hakobyan noted that establishing a period of four and a half months is also problematic. 'If, for example, the service duration is set at 4.5 months, then this is problematic because if a person is to become a soldier and then go into reserves, they should serve for at least 6 months. I don’t know why they’ve chosen 4.5 months; one training phase lasts 6 months because the soldier goes through the program in that timeframe. If the law is accepted such that they serve for 6 months and everyone is discharged, and the army is replenished with contract soldiers, if the human resources in the Republic allow it, this is an acceptable option because everyone becomes conscripted in that state, gaining the military profession. But this option is unacceptable to me.'