Over the Last Two Years, Azerbaijan has Increased Its Military Budget, While Armenia has Increased its Reward Fund: ‘Hayots Ashkharh’

According to the newspaper 'Hayots Ashkharh', 'Over the last two years, Azerbaijan's military spending has sharply increased, while Armenia's has not seen a similar rise. The enemy state is boosting its military budget, while our republic is increasing the reward fund for officials.' A small study conducted by 'Hayots Ashkharh' revealed that Armenia's military expenditures in the 2022 budget increased by about 11 percent, reaching over 345.4 billion drams. In contrast, in 2021, 312 billion drams were allocated to defense from the budget, while, in Azerbaijan, approximately $2.6 billion was dedicated to the defense sector in the 2022 state budget.

Additionally, for instance, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, from 1995 to 2020, Azerbaijan's military spending exceeded Armenia's by nearly five times. Over the past 25 years, around $7.4 billion has been allocated to the Armenian Ministry of Defense from the budget, while during the same period, Azerbaijan spent approximately $32.5 billion.

In 2020 alone, Armenia spent $634 million on military needs, in comparison to Azerbaijan's $2.2 billion. Instead, the reward fund for the Prime Minister's office has increased by 8 million drams compared to 2021, totaling 756 million drams. In 2021, one year after the war, the rewards, monetary incentives, and special payments amounted to 18.8 billion drams, compared to 15.5 billion drams in 2020. The increase was 21.7 percent, rising by 3.36 billion drams.

Moreover, let’s not forget the new and expensive cars purchased for government members using state funds. There is also no lack of large sums in the 'My Step' charitable foundation established by the Prime Minister's wife, Anna Hakobyan, which, by the way, received $510,000 and 77.5 million drams in 2018, 258 million drams, $50,200, and €10 in 2019, 10.3 million drams and $1,019 anonymously in 2020, and 305,000 drams in 2021. Nonetheless, we continue to face losses.'