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Most of the air defense assets used by Armenia during the 44-day war were scrap metal, and the country’s allies provided only symbolic support, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a Facebook post, responding to statements made by former President Serzh Sargsyan.
“What is unclear here? The air defense system you left- not the assets taken separately , but the system as a whole - was scrap metal, in the truest sense of the word. And our allies were showing us a three-finger gesture in response to requests for renewal. (They showed the same to you as well, otherwise, by 2018, there would have been something else instead of scrap metal),” the Prime Minister wrote.
“To make this less "eye catching" the allies would symbolically give us one or two things, about 0.1 percent of what was actually needed , so that later they could point to that if the topic was raised,” Pashinyan added.
He also noted that Armenia’s membership in the CSTO and the possibility of deploying supplied equipment outside the country’s sovereign territory affected the level of assistance. "In particular, they referred to two circumstances: that the Republic of Armenia is a CSTO member state, and that the supplied equipment could be used in territories that are not part of Armenia’s sovereign territory,” Pashinyan explained.
The Prime Minister said that at the time, the government was trying to acquire and modernize whatever was possible, based on the advice and recommendations of the country's top military leadership. Pashinyan invited to discuss the topic in a live format.
“We were trying to acquire whatever was possible, from wherever we could, and to modernize it, following the advice and recommendations of the highest-ranking military officials operating in Armenia at that time,” Pashinyan concluded.