Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Artsrun Hovhannisyan, head of the press service of the Armenian Defense Ministry, was remembered this week with rather aggressive rhetoric.

Speaking at one of the analytical centers of Armenia, Hovhannisyan said that the situation at the frontline has remained stable for the past year and a half. He explained this by saying that “a certain balance of power has appeared between Azerbaijan and Armenia”.

It seems that Hovhannisyan has forgotten that the military budget of Azerbaijan far exceeds the Armenian one. Therefore, to talk about the alignment of the power balance between these countries is at least naive.

He boasted of the ongoing preparations, procurement of weapons and repeated the thesis of Armenian Defense Minister David Tonoyan “there will be surprises when we buy weapons”.

Hovhannisyan considers that increasing the combat capability of the Armenian Armed Forces continues to be the main guarantor of peacekeeping. However, if to follow his logic, then, given the fact that the Armenian military constantly gets into an accident, or they shoot each other out of carelessness, there is no peace in the region. The peace is not foreseen for a completely different reason - Azerbaijan will never reconcile with the occupation of its own territories.

Hovhannisyan did not calm down and sent aggressive messages to the Azerbaijani side. Hovhannisyan said that Azerbaijan has two times more settlements, which fall in the range of small arms. Moreover, he went on, if to count by the number of inhabitants, three times more people from the Azerbaijani side are in the zone of targetability.

Probably Hovhannisyan is not very strong in military affairs because he does not understand that the zone of residence does not always mean zone of targetability. The Azerbaijani army and border troops are able to securely protect their territories. In the event of a prolonged attack by the Armenian side, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces possess all the necessary weapons and skills to suppress the attack.

Moreover, with his statement, Hovhannisyan recognizes the fascist essence of the regime of his country, which is ready to shoot at the Azerbaijani civilian population. Unable to inflict damage on Azerbaijan’s military force, Armenia threatens civilians. So, the cowardice and hypocrisy of the Armenian military is evident.

The most important thing is that Hovhannisyan indirectly confessed to the devastation of Armenia, in particular, of the border villages. His statement confirms that Azerbaijanis are not afraid of war and continue to live in their homeland, while Armenians are afraid and leave the frontline areas.

Indeed, the territories of Armenia, especially the frontline villages, are becoming empty. In many villages in Armenian schools, there are classes where only 1-2 pupils study. This is not only due to the proximity of these settlements to the frontal zone but also to the general difficult socio-economic situation in Armenia.

It is noteworthy that in January-April 2019, as many as 12,800 people moved from Armenia to Russia, while in 2018 this figure was 4,900 people. That is, it turns out that after the velvet revolution, the rates of migration from Armenia increased by more than two and a half times.

Thus, the devastation of villages in Armenia and the reduction of the population continues at an accelerated pace and the current status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will only aggravate the demographic situation in Armenia.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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