Regnum news agency, Rusia
Dec 22 2017


Armenian army to use satellite imagery for reconnaissance

[Armenian News note: the below is translated from Russian]

Yerevan, 22 December: The Armenian Armed Forces are expanding their
reconnaissance capabilities, and in the near future they will start
using "images from space" to conduct operational reconnaissance of the
territory of neighbouring states.

To this end, the Armenian government has allocated 300m drams (625,000
dollars) to Geokosmos closed-type joint-stock company [CJSC], which
was set up in November. According to the government's decision [to
start using "images from space" to conduct operational reconnaissance
of the territory of neighbouring states, the money will be used] "to
put into operation and upgrade the software and hardware used by the
receiving station at Geokosmos".

Artsrun Hovhannisyan, the spokesman for the Armenian Defence Ministry,
said that details of the agreement as well as any further information
related to the government's decision, could not be disclosed.

"The decision to cooperate with Geokosmos CJSC will expand Armenia's
reconnaissance capabilities, particularly by means of space
technologies," the spokesman said.

Asked whether the establishment of Geokosmos would pave the way for
the launch of an Armenian satellite into space, Hovhannisyan said: "I
cannot say precisely what is possible, but the Armed Forces must
gradually develop, and they do develop their means of reconnaissance
and all means of ensuring combat capability in general, and they do
take clear steps in that direction, and you can see that. The draft
law is one of those examples."

The April 2016 war in Nagorno-Karabakh showed that the Armenian Armed
Forces did not possess technical means to carry out deep
reconnaissance and detect the wide scale of military operations
prepared by the enemy.

According to some observers, the Armenian Armed Forces will now be
able to obtain information not only from Russian satellites or those
of member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, but
also from satellites that belong to other states.