While answering the question on increase of Armenia’s military budget for 2018, Graudins related the fact to the Armenian side’s preparation for war.
“Any increase in the military budget means preparation for war. If Armenia takes such a step, then it prepares for war.
As for Russia’s selling Iskandar missile systems to Armenia, it should be noted that Iskandar is a weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. If I were Russia, I would not have provided a country that is involved in territorial conflicts with such weapons. Georgia and Ukraine constantly asks the U.S. to provide them with missile complexes for destruction of armored vehicles. But the U.S. doesn’t provide these countries with such weapons, as it doesn’t want unmanageable military expansion in the south-east of Ukraine,” said the Latvian expert.
“I think that the same position should be taken in respect of Russia. This is my personal view. In my opinion, Russia wrongly acts by providing weapons to a country like Armenia, which is involved in a territorial conflict. However, this somehow reminds the policy of the U.S and Great Britain which supplied both conflicting sides with weapons and then were involved in the same conflicts.
The main threat is the deployment of Russian military contingent in Armenia and this is a very serious issue. However, here is another point as well. If we approach towards the issue from a Russian point of view, we can see that if Moscow does not supply Baku and Yerevan with weapons, then Washington will do it and this means the existence of the U.S. in the region. And this is unacceptable for Russia. I would like to mention that every point regarding ethnic conflicts should be approached diplomatically.
In consideration of the current economic and military potential of Armenia, it is incapable to resist Azerbaijan without external influence. Then the situation would be quite different.
Both sides, including Azerbaijan and Armenia should realize that third parties are provocateurs that try to instigate frozen conflict. Therefore, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry and special service authorities should be resistant,” Graudins said.
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