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Armenian military leadership benefits on soldiers’ ration

22 November 2019 18:45 (UTC+04:00)
Armenian military leadership benefits on soldiers’ ration

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

While ordinary Armenians die in the war, senior officers of the Armenian army earn a lot of money. It is no coincidence that it was the Armenian generals and colonels during the reign of ex-presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serj Sargsyan who turned Armenia into one of the richest people in this country.

The fighting in April 2016 in Nagorno-Karabakh, provoked by the then military-political Armenian leadership, clearly showed the whole world the strength and power of the Azerbaijan Army, which turned into a counterattack with small forces and easily broke through the notorious “Ohanyan line”.

It also demonstrated the cynicism of Armenian officials and senior officers, who earned considerable money both on the army itself and in the April war. The proof is the dismissal of Armenian generals and colonels immediately after the four-day battles. Moreover, Sargsyan fired the people who oversaw the supply sector in the first place. In particular, on April 26, 2016, Sargsyan dismissed Deputy Defense Minister of Armenia, Head of the Department of Logistics Lieutenant-General Alik Mirzabekyan, Major General, former head of the Intelligence Department of the Armenian General Staff Arshak Karapetyan and head of the communications troops of the Armed Forces, chief of the Communications and Automated Management Systems Department Major-General Komitas Muradyan. Then layoffs of the middle officers began.

The reason for the personnel pogrom of the Armenian armed forces is obvious - while some officers did not expect the transition of the Azerbaijan Army to a counter-offensive, others were enriched by selling the army fuel, provisions, uniforms, medical supplies and even communications equipment. The dismissed Armenian Defense Ministry representatives, who are responsible for the technical equipment and logistical support of the Armenian army over the years of misuse of funds allocated to the army, managed to accumulate substantial money not only in Armenian banks but also offshore.

Former member of the Armenian National Assembly Manvel Grigoryan, who for many years was considered one of the richest people in the republic, was also stolen. In the cellars of Grigoryan they found canned meat, cigarettes, uniforms, bandages, fuel - all that was intended for the army in the days of the April war. The investigation has not yet established how much goods Grigoryan managed to sell.

Even after three and a half years, the miserable facts of enrichment at the expense of the April war are still revealed in Armenia. On November 12, 2019, the former head of the Shengavit administrative district of Yerevan, Armen Sargsyan, was charged with misappropriation. The investigation revealed that using his official position, he collected $9,900 through various employees of the district administration, under the pretext of providing financial assistance to the participants of the April war of 2016. He collected the sum from economic entities of the administrative region and persons living in Russia and appropriated it.

The Armenian public suspects that this is not all the facts of the theft. Indeed, for the Armenian military leaders, both the April war of 2016 and the Karabakh conflict as a whole is, first of all, a source of personal enrichment, while ordinary citizens for them are just “cannon fodder” sent for slaughter to occupied Azerbaijani territories under false slogans

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

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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