Putin Brought His Own Motorcade on a Separate Plane: What Details Are Known

Yesterday, the leaders of five out of the six member states of the CSTO arrived in Armenia to participate in the regular session of the CSTO Council. The sixth was Armenia, as the host country. Our attention was drawn to how the Armenian side greeted the leaders of the states and what vehicles they used to move from the airport to the venue of the CSTO Council session at the 'Dvin' hotel. According to the newspaper 'Hraparak',

Initially, the Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan welcomed four of the five heads of state: the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Tajikistan. Only the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, was personally welcomed by Nikol Pashinyan, who then departed with Putin in his limousine from the airport to 'Dvin'. Additionally, it was noted that among the leaders of the five countries, only the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, brought their own official vehicles to Yerevan to move around in them directly.

The vehicles for the rest were armored cars provided by the Armenian side. The most luxurious was the Russian president’s motorcade, which consisted of armored Aurus vehicles manufactured in Russia. Putin travels with six Aurus cars on a separate plane, all of which are armored, including three sedans and three minivans. One of the sedans was used by Putin himself. The motorcade also included other vehicles with Russian state license plates, while the others were vehicles provided by Armenia.

The motorcade of the President of Kazakhstan was relatively more modest, consisting of an armored Mercedes Maybach with a W222 chassis. The other leaders—including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon—were greeted with old, worn-out Mercedes models of W221 chassis S-Class, all armored but already visibly and physically worn. It should be noted that welcoming heads of state with armored vehicles is a protocol requirement, and any host country is obliged to have armored vehicles of a representative class to ensure the safety of high-ranking guests.

The fleet of the Armenian State Protection Service is relatively impoverished and in poor condition. Since Nikol Pashinyan came to power, two W222 armored Mercedes have been acquired at the expense of the budget, one of which, or perhaps both, are alternately used for Pashinyan. The others are much older models, around ten years or more old W221 S-Class, one of which is allocated to the third president, Serzh Sargsyan. These vehicles often encounter technical problems, primarily burning a lot of 'oil'. They also have one armored BMW 760, which was once used to serve Armen Sargsyan. However, it is said that this vehicle is also not in very good technical condition today. In 2018, this BMW was used to welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel; on that day, Armen Sargsyan had to move in a personal Cadillac since the armored BMW allocated to him was provided to Merkel.

For more details, refer to today's issue of the newspaper.