ArmInfo.From year to year, Azerbaijan increases its defense spending, which indicates Baku's intention to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue by force. Colonel Viktor Arustamyan, chief of the operational department of Defense Army of Nagorno Karabakh Republic stated at the conference "Military-Political Tactics of the Enemy and Our Actions" organized by ARF "Dashnaktsutyun" on September 4 in Yerevan.
According to him, Azerbaijan's reduction of financing its own defense needs over the past two years is due to a drop in world oil prices. At the same time, he noted that Baku basically buys weapons from Russia, Turkey, Israel, Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine and South Africa. "In recent years, the situation on the front can be qualified as tense. The military-political leadership of Azerbaijan pursues the following goals by its actions: keeping tension on the front line, trying to change the negotiation process in its favor; inflict as much damage as possible on the Armenian armed forces; check the combat readiness of the Armenian armed forces; to improve the morale of their own armed forces and to test their ability to act during battles; try to divert the attention of our society from problems inside the country, especially in connection with the fall in oil prices, "the colonel believes.
At the same time, Arustamyan expressed the supposition that last year's April war, initiated by Azerbaijan, was dictated by the internal political situation in the country, as well as the possible pressure of Ankara on Baku in connection with the aggravation of Russian-Turkish relations. According to him, the tension on the front after the April fights is preserved, but the number of sabotage attacks has decreased.
Arustamyan also believes that in April of last year Baku tried by force to resolve the issue, but his plan failed.
To the question why, despite the fact that Armenian Armed Forces knew about the clusters armament and manpower on the front line, the factor suddenness, Arustamyan noted that this is due to the fact that the enemy during this period intensively violated ceasefire, carried out sabotage attacks, constantly moved equipment, thereby diverting attention. "Lack of funds for deep reconnaissance and these actions of the enemy deceived us and did not allow us to react immediately, but after a few hours we have already analyzed the situation and resorted to the necessary actions," said the colonel.
He also noted that from 1994 military-technical capabilities of Azerbaijan prevailed over the Armenian ones, as was repeatedly mentioned. But, in his opinion, in addition to military-technical, there are factors such as the preparation of the Armed Forces, their moral and psychological state, morale, which is many times higher in the Armenian side than in adversary.