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Armenia becomes number one state for India

25 July 2024 [12:40] - TODAY.AZ
By Leyla Tarverdiyeva, Day.Az


Armenia has become the largest buyer of weapons from India. This was reported by the Indian news agency IADN. Contracts worth $600 million have been signed for the 2024-2025 financial year. Apparently, Indian weapons are not in great demand if Armenia is the main importer of them and the volume of transactions is not so large.
It should be noted that India itself is the world's largest importer of weapons.

Over the past five years, it has increased arms imports by almost 5 percent and spent more than $60 billion on all this. Further plans include the purchase of $100 billion worth of weapons. Previously, Russia was the main source of purchases, now, after the imposition of sanctions against the latter, India has decided to reorient exports to the United States. Meanwhile, as you can learn from the Russian media, India is in search of 2 billion that it owes Russia for the ordered weapons. It can be said that she will be able to pay 600 million of this amount through Armenian transactions. In turn, purchases of Indian weapons will make up a third of Armenia's defense budget.

Meanwhile, the Indian military-industrial complex does not produce anything particularly effective and, according to experts, Armenia should spend money more thoughtfully. As Russian military expert Ruslan Pukhov told Armenian media, Armenia's purchases "resemble a snake whose head has been torn off, and it makes meaningless zigzags, trying to grab something in France, something in India." According to the expert, "Indian weapons are a terrible hell: they are helicopter crashes in Latin America and so on. The Indians were even ready to "sell" their weapons for free. And Armenia was the first to buy it."

According to the Indian Defense Ministry, Pinaka missile launchers and Akash anti-aircraft systems are in the greatest demand in Yerevan. Starting in 2021, Armenia acquires missiles, artillery systems, air defense systems and other weapons from India. In September 2022, India signed a contract with Armenia for the supply of its Pinaka multi-barrel missile launchers, as well as anti-tank missiles and ammunition worth 260 million dollars. Pinaka was exported for the first time and Armenia became a kind of testing ground for these weapons. However, she had nowhere to try it out in the absence of hostilities. And the military advantages of the Pinaka in Armenia are spoken about only on the principle of a damaged phone.

This was the second arms deal with Armenia - before that, Yerevan bought 4 Swati radar installations from the Indians, paying $ 40 million for them. India is also not averse to selling its helicopters and airplanes (while it buys them from France itself) - the very ones that the Russian expert called a terrible hell. In the opinion of experts, the weapons already purchased by Armenia - the Akash air defense complex, ATAGS howitzers, MArG 155 self-propelled howitzers - also raise questions. It is unlikely that Armenia will be able to find out how these untested products of the Indian military-industrial complex will work in combat conditions, since Azerbaijan does not plan to provide it with such an opportunity.

Why, with all this, did Armenia conclude a deal with India? There can be many reasons.
 1. The relative cheapness of Indian weapons. 2. India's willingness to sell anything to the Armenians. 3. The unwillingness of other sellers of inexpensive weapons to conclude deals with Yerevan due to their good relations with Baku. 4. Armenia's desire to make friends with a new partner, as well as to please Western patrons who demand the rejection of deals with Moscow. 5. It is high time for Armenia to start filling the gaps in the arsenal that have formed after the war, and serious manufacturers do not have the opportunity to purchase serious weapons.

Now Armenia will have many, many howitzers and Indian missiles. What you can't do for a "friend".
URL: http://www.today.az/news/regions/251031.html

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