Third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan clarified the previously expressed opinion that the Armenian army had weapons dating back to the 1980s and explained why the Armenian army hadn’t used long-range weapons during the Four-Day Artsakh War.
During his press conference today, Serzh Sargsyan stated that he had made the statement in Germany right after the war. “Informed people know that in 2016, Germany was chairing the OSCE. My statements truly became a reason for the spread of various rumors and first and foremost by people who can’t picture what weapons dating back to the 1980s mean. Diplomatically speaking, I told the representatives of the OSCE that while they shut an eye on the fact that Azerbaijan is arming the country, Armenia’s soldiers can defend their homeland, and this was clear.
However, I would like to add that all countries’ armies have weapons dating back to the 1980s. If you find such weapons in the most modern armies, I will say that I don’t understand anything about weapons. I can bring many examples, but I wouldn’t like to go deeper into this. Let’s just state the fact that even today, almost all armored vehicle and almost all other weapons date back to the 1980s. Thus, I think the spread of the rumors were due to political reasons.
Why wasn’t the Iskander weapon used? It wasn’t used because the Four-Day Artsakh War wasn’t a large-scale war. It was large-scale military operations. If we used the Iskander, it would be like firing at sparrows with cannons. It is an extremely powerful weapon. Not only Iskander, but also the other long-range weapons were stationed where they were at the right time, and the soldiers were ready to perform any order,” Serzh Sargsyan declared.