Is Armenia preparing for war?

Source: Groong
Armenian Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan has said that the armed forces have begun a large-scale upgrade of their hardware. He said that the military will receive new military hardware and types of weapons, and the existing hardware will be upgraded: “We are regularly making renewals in the army. Now we plan more-large scale efforts in this direction. These projects will also be conducted within the framework of establishing joint ventures with Russia and Poland.”
What does the armament of the Armenian military and upgrade of their military hardware signify? A member of the Milli Maclis security and defence committee, MP Zahid Oruc, told Ekspress that Ohanyan’s statement may be linked to the domestic situation of the Sargsyan regime.
The MP also believes that there are also messages addressed to Azerbaijan here: “First, we have to consider that Armenia is actually Russia’s military plant. Under the guise of some upgrades there are plans to move to the southern flank various industrial facilities and to begin their immediate production. In itself this is completely in favour of Armenia because many weapons bought some time ago are getting obsolete or are used in Karabakh where the cease-fire is breached daily. However, dependence on Russia persists too. In this situation, undoubtedly, Seyran Ohanyan’s remarks show more precisely that they see Russia as their main partner in upgrading weapons. A more precise way to put it would be to say that Russia provides all of the weapons for the Armenian servicemen.”
The MP said that currently Armenia tends to build defence fortifications and therefore it attempts to mainly procure tanks and other hardware: “Meanwhile, intelligence reports too often say that Armenians no longer work on weapons with long reach. [Azerbaijani Defence Minister] Safar Abiyev had said that today Azerbaijan is capable of hitting any place in Armenia. This means that Azerbaijan does not want to wage the war in small border areas.”
Oruc also provided an interesting piece of information. Russia refuses to disclose the specifications of some weapons that it sold to Azerbaijan, he said. “Russia has sold weapons to Azerbaijan as well. By keeping many of their specifications a military secret it is damaging us. I openly state that Russians are not reliable partners. They keep to themselves secret informational control in many different areas and do not provide it to Azerbaijan. I cannot say to what extent they share it with Armenians,” the MP said. According to him, Azerbaijan must step up adequate measures and regard Ohanyan’s statement is not only an element in the information war, but also as an indication that Armenia, in a certain sense, is going through a process of armament. “Certainly, I do not hold the view that there must be a continuous arms race in the region. This is a trap, an international trap, a game engineered by weapons manufacturers. They wish to make us fight like Iran and Iraq and spend our oil dollars on weapons. Arming Armenia to a degree is part of Russia’s project to sell bigger batches of weapons to Azerbaijan. I believe that steps must be taken in cold blood and with full consideration of the real military security situation.”