YEREVAN—Armenian and Russian officials announced on Thursday the ratification of a $100 million loan that the Armenian government will use toward purchasing modern arms from Russia.
The terms of the agreement require Armenia to repay the loan within a period of 20 years (five of which are a grace period), with a three percent annual interest rate.
The Armenian government has not yet disclosed which types of Russian-made military hardware will be purchased. During a news conference last week, Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan said he does not wish to disclose the list of weapons because doing so would provide valuable intelligence to the enemy, and instead prefers to showcase the new catalog of weapons during the country’s military parades.
These arms loans have attracted Armenia in the past. A similar loan was ratified two years ago, in June 2015, the major difference being that Russia made explicit the types of weapons that could be purchased under the agreement. That list included Smerch multiple-launch rocket system, TOS-1A thermobaric rockets, anti-tank weapons and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.
Armenia is not the only benefactor of Russian arms deals. Moscow has received criticism for selling billions of dollars worth of heavy weapons to Azerbaijan in the past several years.
With all due respect
I hope 100 per cent of the 100 million dollar loan is spent for weapons
Russia won’t give them cash they give Armenia, weapons, for strengthen their position in volatile Caucasus, in return, they will take cheap Armenian brandy and food, for their own consumption, and cut off Armenia’s export to Western world and EU!
The big power balancing act. Benefiting?
Russia also sells Azerbaijan, our enemy, massive modern weapons who’s sole purpose is to be used against Armenia. What kind of nonsense ‘ally’ is that? Russia would betray Armenia if it benefited it. Make no mistake.
Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey, on the other hand, would never ever betray Azerbaijan and schemes in every way to hurt Armenia for Azerbaijan’s benefit alone. OUR OWN UNITY IS OUR ONLY ANSWER.
Russian loans or credits (which Armenia uses to purchase modern weapons systems at domestic prices) need to be looked at in conjunction with all free military hardware, technology and valuable training Armenia receives more-or-less in secret. Russia is helping an impoverished, landlocked and blockaded Armenia compete against and maintain military parity with an oil rich Azerbaijan that has been on a military spending spree in recent years. And by covering Armenia’s border with Turkey, Moscow allows Yerevan to concentrate all its effort on protecting Armenia’s and Artsakh’s borders with Azerbaijan. Russia is the single greatest factor keeping the Armenian state alive in the south Caucasus. If there wasn’t a Diapsora, Armenia would still live. If there wasn’t a Russia in Armenia, there wouldn’t be an Armenia in the south Caucasus.
When it comes to Armenia’s Parliament approving new defense agreement with Russia, we have 40 comments (so far), most of them filled with anger by anti-Armenia-Russia alliance posters. But when it comes to Russia loaning $100 million to Armenia for weapons spending, we only have 5 comments. Something must be fundamentally in the psyche of those people who comment on one topic foaming at the mouth, but are deafeningly silent on the other.
My guess is that these people spend an unnatural amount of time browsing this site for these types of articles, then once they find the specific types they are looking for, they go on a comment spree. It is so cringeworthy.
Just $100 million? Loan?? USA just gave Israel’s military a $3 BILLION GRANT and this is on an ongoing yearly basis.
Russia to Armenia: “we’re going to feed you our left over bones, and you’re gonna pay for it”.
Armenia to Russia: “yes master – what choice do we have?”.
This unimpressed diasporan to posters at AW: “Russia is not acting like a true partner and ally of Armenia, and they are making little Armenia pay for their own interests while making it seem like ‘they are there to protect Armenia’. This may be true as one part of two, the second part being Russia also benefits from its presence and interests, and not when Russia keeps those very threats alive on purpose, and we don’t point out Russia’s interests and reciprocal responsibility towards Armenia, and Armenia must thus make demands of Russia, not act like its servant”.
Reactionary Russia-bots at AW to this unimpressed diasporan: “Your name is of Kurdish origin and you are nothing more than a Soros operative working for western interests, and God bless Russia and all enemies foreign and domestic”.
Moral of this story: according to those among us who are not emotional simpletons and who know nothing about realpolitik or world affairs, it is a mortal sin to even complain about Russia to benefit or better Armenia – we need to let Mother Russia decide what’s good for us – just sit your ass down and eat your borscht.
Moscow closes Armenia’s mouth by giving a small loan of 100 mln to arm Azerbaijan with hundreds of $ millions .
Lao, your Russophobic nonsense is getting richer by the minute. It’s because you simply don’t know how else to explain or justify your Russophobic nonesense. Jews have full spectrum dominance over the United States? America might as well be called the United States of Israel. Therefore, comparing Armenia’s situation with that of Israel’s is like comparing apples to string beans. You can call it “leftover bones”, you can call it whatever makes you feel better about your existence, but the reality is that Russians have been doing more for Armenia than Armenians themselves. If the cheep energy (including nuclear fuel), billions of dollars in investments and trade, tourism, yearly employment opportunity for hundreds of thousands of Armenians, affordable (and sometimes free) weapons systems, military training and protecting Armenia’s border with Turkey is not enough Russian help for people like you, than this conversation is meaningless.
Simply put: People like you are traitors to Armenia. People like you are the reason why Armenia has been in the situation it has been in for the past one thousand years. In any case, when Armenians like you wake up one day and finally realize that what we needs is better lobbying efforts in Moscow, Armenia may enjoy a much more beneficial alliance with Russia. In the meanwhile, what hurts Russian-Armenian relations and therefore Armenia itself is people like you.