News - Armenia not yet officially petitions to Russia to terminate arms supply contract worth millions of dollars

According to Armenian News-NEWS.am’s information, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Armenia has not yet officially petitioned to Russia to unilaterally terminate the multi-million dollar arms supply contract signed with the country's military industrial companies back in 2021 and to pay a fine for non-fulfillment of contractual obligations, despite the fact that Armenia never received the weaponry provided for in the contract. In relation to the matter, Armenian News-NEWS.am sent a written request to the MoD of Armenia to find out how many of the obligations stipulated in the arms supply contracts with Russian military industrial companies since 2021 have not been fulfilled by the Russian side, and for what reason? We were also interested in whether the MoD of Armenia unilaterally terminated the arms supply contract with Russian military industrial companies and demanded to pay a fine for non-fulfillment of the contractual obligations. In response to our inquiry, Hamlet Batikyan, Secretary General of the MoD of Armenia, refused to provide information, citing item 19 of the list approved by the government's relevant decision "On approving the list of information classified as state secrets." According to the aforementioned provision of the decision, information revealing the amount of state defense orders, supplies of weapons and military equipment, the plans (tasks) of their production capacity are classified as state secrets. Let's note, however, that our questions to the MoD of Armenia are not related to the amount of supplies, but exclusively to the non-fulfillment of the obligations stipulated in the supply contracts, and the corresponding steps resulting from it. It is noteworthy that the MoD of Armenia did not consider it a state secret and published a document in official sources in October last year regarding the termination of the arms supply contract with a Jordanian company back in 2021 and the payment of the corresponding fine. Recently, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, stated in an interview with the Novaya Gazeta Europa periodical that Armenia did not receive the weapons it ordered and paid for from Russia.