What does Russia want to show by arming Armenia?

Baku / 27.08.20 / Turan: The days of the visit of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Baku coincided with the intensification of the Armenian-Russian military cooperation. So, the day before his arrival in Azerbaijan, Shoigu met with Armenian Defense Minister Tonoyan in Moscow. At the end of the meeting, Tonoyan solemnly announced that no country in the world can boast such a level of military-technical cooperation with Russia as Armenia.

Indeed, before flying to Baku and making stupid statements about the supply of building materials by transport aircraft, Shoigu agreed to modernize outdated Armenian SU-25 attack aircraft.

14 of these aircraft will be re-equipped with modern tracking and detection systems, which will significantly increase their combat effectiveness. At the same time, Russia announced that it would supply Armenia with 8 more modern heavy SU-30 SM fighters. The price of one such aircraft for the CSTO members is $ 30 million, which means the deal will cost Yerevan $ 240 million.

To modernize 14 SU-25 units, Yerevan will need another $ 84 million, a total of $ 324 million. The question arises: where did Yerevan get these funds?

If we recall the previous experience, then the most expensive Russian weapons (S-300 and Iskander missiles) were supplied to Yerevan free of charge.

Against this background, Azerbaijan purchases weapons from Russia at international prices, having spent about $ 5 billion in recent years.

By purchasing arms from Russia, Azerbaijan could justly count on the honesty of its northern partner, but Moscow again proved that it intends to simply “milk” Azerbaijan and support Armenia. At the same time, the arrogance of Moscow officials knows no boundaries and the former firefighter Shoigu, without blinking, declares that Russia will never do something against Azerbaijan.

How stupid Shoigu looks was clearly visible from the expression on Ilham Aliyev's face, who looked at the Moscow envoy with slight contempt.

Apparently the time has come to push Moscow out of the arms market in the South Caucasus and reorient itself to other countries. The recent statement by the US Undersecretary of State about the readiness to supply American weapons everywhere was not accidental. -02B-2