The government has approved a new draft law drafted by the Defense Ministry, which offers the possibility of buying off from compulsory military service. According to the draft law, 4.5 months after the military phase of compulsory military service, a soldier may pay AMD 24 million to the Armenian state budget and leave compulsory military service early.
"I have a negative attitude towards it because I think that everyone should serve their country regardless of their social status," he said. According to the colonel-general, this draft law will also affect the army's moral and psychological state. "It will affect not only the army, but also families, because the son will say to his father: what parent you are that you did not exempt me from the army, another parent borrowed, took a loan and exempted his son from the army," Col. Gen. Movses Hakobyan told NEWS.am
According to the draft, a person can pay back the money at the end of the training phase of military service, which on average is four and a half months. In that regard, Hakobian said the four-and-a-half-month definition is also problematic. "I don't know where they got the four and a half months from when the training phase is six months. If the law is passed in such a way that everyone serves for six months and demobilizes, and the army is replenished with contract servicemen, if human resources allow, it is an acceptable option, because everyone in this state becomes a military man, having acquired the profession of a military man. But in this form the draft law is unacceptable for me," Hakobyan concluded.