Armenia’s Ministry of Defense says that the process of installation of surveillance equipment at the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh and at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is underway after the fierce fighting in the conflict zone in April 2016, but “empty tin cans are still being applied” as part of the early warning system.
In fact, head of the Ministry’s Defense Policy Department Levon Ayvazian says that the use of empty tin cans is considered quit efficient.
“However primitive they may seem, I can say that they are effective. If it works, it may also be applied along with high technology. Tin cans are a necessity in some places,” the official emphasized at a press conference in Yerevan on Tuesday.
On Monday, chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Movses Hakobian hosted consultations during which he instructed commanders to concentrate efforts on ensuring the security of servicemen on combat duty at border outposts.
According to Ayvazian, surveillance equipment is currently installed in some parts of the border. But this process, he said, is not completed yet. Ayvazian said that a huge amount of work has already been done, and similar devices are mainly installed at the line of contact between Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces. “It has increased our ability to track the movement of the enemy,” the Defense Ministry official said.
Armenia’s leading human rights activist Artur Sakunts, who heads the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly’s Vanadzor office, a few months ago published a report on the April 2016 hostilities in Karabakh in which he pointed out numerous problems. According to the activist, it remains unclear to the public whether the Defense Ministry has analyzed the problems and found solutions to them.
In Sakunts’ opinion, what caused problems in April 2016 was an “inefficient” policy in the defense sphere. He also deplored the explanation that using “empty tin cans” is efficient. “If it is efficient, let the security of the Defense Ministry building and the mansions of oligarchs be also ensured by empty tin cans,” he commented poignantly.