ArmInfo. Paris is not guided by the interests of Armenia and its people, but seeks to use Yerevan to achieve its own opportunistic goals. In a similar way, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, commented on the supply of weapons to Armenia by France.
She emphasized that this is part of Paris's policy - to be everywhere and not bear any responsibility. "If they wanted to take a responsible approach to conflict resolution, they had a million opportunities, one of which was the same Minsk agreements," said the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Zakharova emphasized that the agreements reached between Yerevan, Baku and Moscow in 2020 and 2022 caused wild jealousy and bitterness in the West. "The West considered this to be its area of interest and, having failed to achieve any progress on the track of peaceful settlement, is simply preparing matters for another chaos, for the policy of chaos, and, perhaps, will consider this as revenge for the peace-loving efforts that Russia made, which yielded concrete results and outlined a way out of the long-standing impasse. After all, a path was found, a solution - it was necessary to simply implement what was agreed upon", she noted. The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that France's rhetoric is aimed at reigniting the conflict potential. At the same time, Zakharova considers Paris's policy destructive. "Unfortunately, I would like to be wrong, but the prospects are not good if Paris does become the very force that turns Yerevan away from real regulation in favor of another adventure," she said.
Armenia and France signed a contract for the purchase of French CAESAR self-propelled howitzers (a 155-mm 52-caliber self-propelled howitzer developed and manufactured by the French Nexter company). And on June 17, the Armenian Defense Ministry reported that during the working visit of the Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan to Paris, a military-technical cooperation agreement was signed between the Ministry of Defence of the RA and the French military-industrial company KNDS.
Following this, ean-Christophe Buisson, deputy editor-in-chief of the French Le Figaro daily, on his Twitter page(X) reported that Armenia had purchased 36 newest CAESAR self-propelled howitzers from France. According to him, the howitzers will be delivered to Armenia within the next 15 months.