MOSCOW HAS PREPARED AZERBAIJAN FOR WAR
Hakob Badalyan, Political Commentator
Comments – 17 March 2015, 15:48
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has published
facts of military spending for 2010-2014. Accordingly, over the
past four years Azerbaijan has boosted import of weapons by 243%
and comes next to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom imports 14%
and Azerbaijan imports 13% of weapons in Europe.
85% of weapons bought by Azerbaijan are supplied by Russia which is
a strategic partner and a participant of security of Armenia.
Armenia’s military expenditure, according to Stockholm Institute,
is 4% of Azerbaijan’s spending.
This statistics expresses the disrupted regional balance which is the
result of the Russian-Azerbaijani military and technical cooperation.
The statements that Russia equally supplies weapons to Armenia are a
bluff and the International Peace Research Institute busts it. Russia
brings weapons to Armenia but these weapons are under the control of
its 102nd military base in Armenia. In other words, the weapons are
physically in Armenia but these guns will fire only if Russia wants
them to. It is not hard to guess in what cases Russia will want. As
soon as the Azerbaijani weapons totally destroy the territory of
Armenia, the Russian weapons will fire to finalize its dominance over
this territory.
The fact that Armenia and Azerbaijan may be equally armed has nothing
to do with the regional balance because it is not Armenia’s but
Russia’s weapon. In other words, there is balance between Azerbaijan
and Russia, not Azerbaijan and Armenia. And judging by the levels
of the Russian-Azerbaijani military and technical cooperation, this
is not a balance but a deal against Armenia, regional balance and
stability. In addition, the result of the deal is the increasing
frequency and intensity of Azerbaijan’s sabotages over the past two
years alongside with the levels of military and technical cooperation
with Russia.
Russia and Azerbaijan are threatening security and stability in the
Caucasus, and the only way of preventing this threat is to increase
weapons possessed by Armenia, which is the issue of both Armenia and
the international community because the Russian-Azerbaijani threat
is an international threat.