Why Armenia's Military-Technical Cooperation with Russia has Dropped from 96% to Below 10%: Armen Grigoryan

The military-technical cooperation with Russia has declined from 96% to below 10%—this was Russia's choice. This was stated by the Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan during an interview with Petros Ghazaryan on Public Television.

“The need for diversification has objectively arisen. How did we determine that we need to diversify? First of all, starting from 2021, we have attempted to purchase weapons from Russia, signing contracts with them. We developed a concept for the reform of the army in collaboration with Russia to implement those reforms together. But instead of those reforms, attacks on Armenia occurred in May and November. Russia did not supply us with the necessary weapons, not only the required ones but also the purchased ones, which amounted to $250 million, contracts signed in 2021. Therefore, we began searching for new partners; one of those prominent partners is India, and recently France has become one; we have started working with various countries in the European Union and many others.

In 2020, 96% of Armenia's military-technical cooperation was with Russia. From January 2021 to today, we have signed contracts worth several billion dollars with various countries. Currently, Russia's share of those contracts is below 10%. This means that military-technical cooperation with Russia has dropped from 96% to less than 10%, which also indicates that this occurred for objective reasons and was indeed Russia's choice.

Contracts were signed, but those contracts were not serviced. Moreover, it is often referenced to the war occurring in Ukraine, but those contracts were signed at the beginning of 2021, and for more than a year, they were not fulfilled, and even after the war, they were not supplied. This was Russia's decision, putting us in a factual situation, and we have been forced to diversify,” he added.