The shortcomings during the 44-day war haven’t been entirely studied, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in parliament in response to MP Hovik Azaryan’s question whether or not the wartime flaws were efficiently studied and whether or not the government is properly getting ready to a possible large-scale war.
PM says current steps aimed at withstanding possible large-scale attack are insufficient
STEPANAKERT, APRIL 13, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: “Of course we haven’t studied it completely,” Pashinyan said.
He said that when the 2018 revolution took place his political team’s approach was the following: to avoid appointing anyone from the political team in military posts.
“The minister was a previous Cabinet member, he was previously the first deputy minister, and was minister of emergency situations when the revolution took place,” Pashinyan said, referring to Davit Tonoyan.
"We didn’t appoint anyone from our political team in the defense ministry because we thought that nevertheless the army is one other family and we shouldn’t interfere in its internal matters, understanding that an escalation could happen at any moment and with this realization we didn’t do that,” the PM said.
The Prime Minister said that he found out that the military has a problem of helmets and ballistic vests only a few days after the 44-day war started.
“And what about the hundreds of millions of dollars we were spending on weapons, was it difficult to buy helmets or vests? These are all systemic gaps and I think that we must go to the end and reveal what happened,” the PM said.
He added that the actions which are done to withstand possible large-scale manifestations are insufficient.
“Our army is at the most difficult phase, because the phase of transformation is always the most difficult one. What needs to be done and the reforms that we must do is a very difficult path but we must realize that we have some objective restrictions there and we must do everything to overcome these restrictions. This is the reason why I decided that the Defense Minister must be a representative of the political team and now in retrospect I regret that I hadn’t made that decision earlier. But I am not even sure that this should had been done from the very beginning,” Pashinyan said.
