General Movses Hakobyan said that the Armenian government procured inappropriate weapons and weapons, rendering the army helpless against enemy UAVs.
General Hakobyan held a press conference on November 19 in the capital, Yerevan, after resigning as chief of staff of the Armenian army, revealing many "fatal mistakes" that caused the Armenian army to suffer heavy losses in the war with Azerbaijan
The first mistake of Armenia as pointed out by Hakobyan was in the procurement of weapons without exploiting their full strength, or inconsistent with the reality of the battlefield, including the Russian contract for the Su-30SM
Armenia has been discussing the possibility of purchasing the Su-30SM heavy multi-role fighter in January 2016, replacing plans to buy several Tor anti-aircraft missile divisions.
In 2019, Armenia signed a contract to order four Russian Su-30SMs, with the budget drawn from the plan to buy Tor missiles.
"I have repeatedly asked political and military leaders not to buy Su-30SM fighters but they ignored them," said General Hakobyan.
Su-30SM is a multi-role fighter generation 4 ++ designed by Russian Sukhoi Group.
The appearance of the Su-30SM is expected to give Armenia a significant advantage in the event of a conflict, since the Azerbaijani army only staffed the old MiG-21 and MiG-29 fighters with inferior performance.
General Hakobyan confirmed that the decision to buy a Su-30SM fighter instead of a Tor missile was a wrong step and discussed directly with the Prime Minister of Armenia, but received an answer that the contract was signed.
General Hakobyan said that Armenia had intended to buy large quantities of the Tor-M2KM short-range missile system, but that the plan was suspended upon handover of a few units, as the remaining budget had been transferred to the contract.
The Russian-developed Tor-M2 air defense missile is considered a star of a small UAV, once demonstrating a superior combat capacity than the artillery system - the Pantsir-S1 missile when fighting in Syria.
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The Tor-M2KM combat vehicle is usually equipped with 8 9M331 bullets, allowing up to 4 targets at a time from a distance of 16 km and an altitude of 10 km.
Hakobyan also said he was "forced to buy Osa air defense systems" several times.
A series of Armenian Osa combat vehicles were ambushed and destroyed by Azerbaijan UAVs at the beginning of the conflict.
General Hakobyan said that during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Moscow fulfilled its obligations to Yerevan, including "supplying weapons we dare not dream of", and criticized Prime Minister Pashinyan for being too slow.
Former Armenian General Staff confirmed that the Russian Pole-21 electronic warfare system helped the country's army interrupt the operation of the UAV Bayraktar TB2 squadron supplied by Turkey to Azerbaijan for 4 days, at the same time
The Armenian Ministry of Defense has not commented on the information released by General Hakobyan.
Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out on September 27 in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and lasted for weeks, leaving thousands dead and forcing many to evacuate.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Armenia returns 15-20% of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan regained after weeks of fighting, including the city of Shusha.