Russia may alter the scale of its supplies of modern weaponry to Azerbaijan in view of Armenian concerns following heavy fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, a senior Russian lawmaker hinted in Yerevan this week.
Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base and is a member of the Russian-led defense pact, took offense at Moscow in the wake of a brief war with Azerbaijan in April 2016 during which Baku used some of its state-of-the-art offensive weapons purchased from Russia.
Nearly a hundred Armenian troops were killed and scores were injured in the clashes that triggered protests in Yerevan against Russia, the main supplier of deadly weapons to Azerbaijan.
According to various sources, since 2011 Azerbaijan has purchased from Russia up to 4 billion dollars’ worth of arms, including some modern offensive weapons.
President Serzh Sarkisian raised the issue shortly after the cessation of hostilities in 2016 as he hosted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Yerevan. He emphasized that Azerbaijan used the Russian weapons also against ethnic Armenian civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I am sure you know that the fact that Azerbaijan used in full measure the weapons that it purchased from Russia in the recent time has evoked a strong reaction in Armenia,” Sarkisian said back then.
Top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have effectively defended arms supplies to Baku, saying that an oil-rich country like Azerbaijan could have purchased similar types of weapons elsewhere on the world market. Routinely they have also pointed to the fact that Russia also supplies Armenia with modern types of weapons at knockdown prices or even free of charge, which, according to Moscow, maintains the military balance in the region.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the upper house of Russia’s parliament, the Federation Council, was challenged on the matter as he led a delegation on a visit to Armenia this week. During a press conference at the National Assembly of Armenia on Wednesday journalists reminded the Russian senator about Russian President Putin’s September statement that the United States’ decision to supply weapons to Kyiv would not contribute to the resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Armenian media stressed, for many years Russia has supplied weapons to Azerbaijan, which is in a de-facto state of war with Armenia.
“Russia is fulfilling its contracts [with Azerbaijan] that were concluded before April 2016, and we are obliged to do so in accordance with the provisions of these contracts. But this is a situation that existed up to that moment, and according to the information that I possess, it will not be reproduced in the future on the existing scale. Of course, we are reacting to the situation that occurred in April 2016. There is no doubt about that,” Kosachev said in Yerevan.
Talking to media in Yerevan on Thursday, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian confirmed that the matter of Russian arms supplies to Azerbaijan has been discussed between Yerevan and Moscow.
“I can only say that the circumstance that they [Russians] try to draw conclusions from the [2016] April war [in Nagorno-Karabakh] can be welcomed,” he said in answer to the question of RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which is known for its research into armaments worldwide, recently published a report reaffirming Russia as Azerbaijan’s number one arms supplier.The Sweden-based institute said Russia accounted for 65 percent of Azerbaijan’s armament imports in 2013-2017.
Richard Giragosian, the director of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center, said that by continued large-scale arms deliveries to Azerbaijan Russia is seeking to solve both its geopolitical and economic tasks.
“There are significant financial incentives for Russia to continue supplying Azerbaijan with modern offensive weapons,” said Giragosian, adding that Armenia’s complaints to Moscow will be ineffective as long as Russia’s policy towards Azerbaijan is involved. In this view, the analyst said, military reform in Armenia and Armenia’s military ties with China and Western countries become “even more important than before.”
Along with the United States and France, Russia is a mediator in the process of settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the co-chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group.
The mainly Armenian-populated region declared independence from Azerbaijan during 1988-94 ethnic tensions and a war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Three decades of diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the conflict have brought little progress.
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