BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 19
Trend:
Yerevan is only following its own course, but it doesn't have money for real [military] contracts, Russian political analyst Yevgeny Mikhailov told Trend.
He made the remark commenting on the statement of the Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan made during the official visit of the Armenian delegation to Serbia.
The Armenian media disseminated information that one of the topics discussed during the meeting was the possible cooperation of Armenia with Serbia in military sector.
Mikhailov believes that there is no need to talk about any military-technical cooperation between Armenia and Serbia so far.
“Baku receives weapons from many countries, and Azerbaijan's army is much better equipped than that of Armenia. Meanwhile, Serbia does not have the ability to develop the latest defense technology. Even if Serbia supplies Armenia with small arms, there won't be any advantage of Armenia over Azerbaijan,” said the expert.
In turn, Ukrainian political analyst Oleg Khavich was skeptical about the hypothetical military cooperation between Belgrade and Yerevan.
“Serbia does not produce modern types of military weapons and equipment, receiving them mainly from Russia – like Armenia. Therefore, I believe that the only promising type of cooperation in this area is the possible participation of the Armenian military in joint Serbian-Russian exercises, which are regularly held in Serbia, as well as the possibility of using the Armenian army of Serbian military training grounds," he told Trend.
Meanwhile, Georgy Engelhardt, a researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that Baku has been actively developing its own presence in the Balkans, including Serbia for more than ten years, adding that it is no coincidence that a monument to the National Leader of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, is in the center of Belgrade (Tashmaydan Park).
Engelhardt also noted that the period of the coronavirus pandemic in itself does not favor any military-technical cooperation between any countries, as well as between Serbia and Armenia.
“Moreover, now the Serbian authorities are concerned, first of all, about obtaining medical and sanitary equipment. In my opinion, in March 2020 it’s impossible to take into account the pandemic for any government in Europe, in principle. For the Serbian government, which just the other day (March 15) introduced emergency situation in the country, this is definitely impossible," the expert added.
Speaking about military-technical cooperation between Armenia and Serbia, the expert suggested that it can be talked about individual elements (radars for example), since Belgrade itself purchases weapons systems from large foreign manufacturers.