Contest of gun barons over Armenia [OPINION]

By Azernews

Qabil Ashirov

India continues to arm Armenia as well as purposefully strengthen military-technical cooperation, which causes some concern in Azerbaijan. Local Indian media outlets announced that the country has signed a contract with Armenia worth $41 million for the sale and maintenance of anti-drone systems. The systems are developed by Zen Company in Hyderabad, India. It is worth noting that the Indian Air Forces signed a contract to purchase these anti-drone systems in 2021, and their delivery to the Indian Army will start in March 2024.

Moreover, the local media outlets in India claim that Yerevan is the second to bargain for these systems; however, Armenian officials prefer to remain silent.

Considering previous deals on weapons, many in Azerbaijan interpret Indian behaviour as hostility against Azerbaijan. They think that India considers Azerbaijan an enemy, and therefore it is arming Armenia. Even some media reports have specifically noted that the whole system has been designed to destroy the Turkish Bayraktar TB drones. This demonstrates that India is more interested in creating tension in the South Caucasus than Armenia.

Speaking to Azernews on the issue, military expert Ramil Mammadli has a totally different opinion. He thinks that Azerbaijan could also cooperate with India in the field of the defence industry, but Azerbaijan did not consider cooperation with India in this direction in terms of quality of arms. Besides, according to the expert, the presence of Azerbaijan-Pakistan relations and the warmth of relations did not allow the deepening of relations between Azerbaijan and India to develop at the military and technical level.

He emphasised that Armenia is more interested in developing military cooperation with India. As is known, other countries, such as France, could provide Armenia with the same weapons. But Armenia prefers India to France. Because French-made weapons are European products, they have better quality and a higher price. Since Armenia is a poor country, it cannot afford them, so it turns to India, with less quality and cheap prices.

“This is not the first deal between India and Armenia. The total amount of the deal is close to 250 million dollars. It is said that this amount has grown even more, and contracts worth about one billion dollars have been signed or are in the process of being signed. This process will continue. Armenia has found an additional country for cooperation in an alternative military-technical field, and it serves the interests of Armenia in the current situation. For example, one can ask why Armenia does not buy similar weapons from France. France also serves the interests of Armenia. But French products are European products; their quality and prices are high, and this factor is not very acceptable for Armenia, which is not rich. On the other hand, India offers these weapons at a more reasonable price with poor quality,” R. Mammadli opined.

He also pointed out that the deal over anti-drone systems between Armenia and India doesn't concern only Azerbaijan but also other countries in the region. As we know, at the present time, many operations, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well as operational sabotage measures, are carried out using unmanned aerial vehicles. As for the effectiveness of these weapons, the military expert noted that it can be an obstacle for the UAVs and may limit their ability to manoeuvre and cause certain problems.

“Does Azerbaijan have any means that can be used against these anti-drone systems? If we take into account that the radio-electronic warfare systems are also used to silence and disable the ground enemy and rival technology and equipment, if we take the radio-electronic warfare systems in the inventory of the Azerbaijani army as a basis, yes, there are means against those anti-drone systems,” Ramil Mammadli added.