The Armenian Defense Ministry said senior military officials from the two states approved on Tuesday a plan of joint actions for 2024 and 2025 and set up a “working group” tasked with coordinating them. Indian-Armenian military cooperation will involve not only arms supplies but also military education, “tactical training” and “exchange of experience,” it said without going into details.
New Delhi and Yerevan have already deepened that cooperation since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh war during which India’s arch-foe Pakistan strongly supported Azerbaijan. In particular, they have signed multimillion-dollar contracts reportedly calling for the delivery of Indian artillery systems, anti-tank rockets and anti-drone equipment to the Armenian army.
Leonid Nersisian, a defense analyst with the APRI Armenia think-tank, suggested on Wednesday that India has become Armena’s number one arms supplier. He said the two sides are now “very interested” in going farther.
“One day we may see joint military exercises,” Nersisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Russia had long been Armenia’s principal supplier of weapons and ammunition. The South Caucasus nation has acquired them at domestic Russian prices, set below international market-based levels, and even for free.
The Armenian government has been looking for alternative suppliers due to its growing tensions with Moscow and the continuing war in Ukraine. Armenian officials have repeatedly complained that the Russians have still not delivered weapons purchased by Yerevan in 2021 and 2022. According to one of them, those contracts are worth $250 million.