UPI:
Yerevan has been obligated to buy Iskander-M short-range ballistic missiles system to balance the volatile military situation in the Caucasus region, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview with the MIA Rossiya Segodnya news agency.
“It is no secret that over the last few years, Azerbaijan has regularly purchased the latest weapons,” said Sargsyan. “We do not have such financial opportunities as Azerbaijan, but are trying all the time to balance the situation, to find the antidote. I think that in this case, the Iskander is such an antidote.”
He said Yerevan has entered an arms race with neighboring Azerbaijan.
“We do not want to go for it, but what to do if you are every day threatened with war and physical extermination,” said Sargsyan. “You must take appropriate steps.”
He stressed that Moscow had decided to sell Iskander-M missile systems to Armenia out of turn, based on an agreement between the two countries on maintaining the balance of forces in the region.
Why has Russia sold the Iskander-M to Armenia – and nobody else?
Armenia is currently the only country in the world to receive the green light for the purchase of Russia’s Iskander-M missile systems.
“Moscow is preparing to sign an agreement on the establishment of the Joint Group of Forces with Armenia,” Ret. Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, former commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, said in an interview with RBTH.
“We are becoming allies, and therefore as an exception have delivered one battalion (three batteries, each consisting of three launchers, plus support vehicles) of Iskander-M operational and tactical systems to Armenia.”
He noted that Russia has received many applications for the purchase of this system, but Moscow will not export the Iskander-M in the coming years.
“Until manufacturers replace the Tochka-U systems in ground brigades for the latest Iskander-M, there will be no talk about mass deliveries abroad,” said Yesin.
According to Yesin, the sale of Iskander-M missile systems to Yerevan will not affect relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, which has been involved in an on-off conflict with Armenia since 1994 over the breakaway “republic” of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Baku – and most of the world – recognizes as Azerbaijani territory but which is essentially an Armenian protectorate….
