Pashinyan became aware of lack of personal protective equipment for  military personnel  few days after start of 44-day war

ArmInfo. RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was informed just a few days after the start of the 44-day Artsakh war that the Armenian army had problems with helmets and body  armor. He made such a confession on April 13 in parliament, answering  the question of Hovik Aghazaryan, Mof the ruling Civil Contract  faction, whether the omissions and mistakes made during the war have  been studied at the proper level, and whether the army is preparing  at the required level for a possible large-scale war.

"Of course, we have not fully studied them," the prime minister said.  According to Pashinyan, when the non-violent velvet popular  revolution of 2018 took place, the approach of their political team  was as follows: do not appoint to positions in the army from their  political team. "The minister was a member of the former government,  the government of Serzh Sargsyan, previously he was the first deputy  minister for emergency situations, during the revolution he was the  minister of emergency situations (David Tonoyan - ed. note).

We did not assign anyone from our political team to the Ministry of  Defense, to the army, because we thought that the army, however, is a  different family, and we should not interfere too much in this  family, realizing that there are dangers, in any moment may escalate.  We didn't do it consciously, maybe it was wrong," he said.

Pashinyan said that a few days after the 44-day war, he was informed  that the army had a problem with helmets and body armor. "We spent  hundreds of millions of dollars on arms purchases. Was it difficult  for us to buy helmets and body armor? You see, all these were  systemic flaws in our army and I think that we should go all the way  and find out why this happened," the prime minister said.

At the same time, the head of government considers the actions taken  to counter possible large-scale manifestations insufficient. "Our  army is at the most difficult stage, because the stage of  transformation is always the most difficult. What we must do, the  reforms that we must implement, is a very difficult path, but we must  also understand that we have certain objective limitations and we  must do everything to overcome these restrictions. It is for this  reason that I decided that the Minister of Defense should be a  representative of the political team, and now, looking back, I regret  that I did not make this decision earlier.  But, on the other hand,  I'm not sure it should have been done in the first place," the prime  minister said.