Ambassador Volinkin Lied about the Arms Supply

On June 26 of 2015, the Armenian-Russian “Agreement on Providing a State Export Loan to the RA Government” was signed in Yerevan. According to the agreement, Armenia was supposed to purchase weapons and military equipment worth 200 million USD from Russia and pay during 10 years.

In the interview to Radio Liberty on September 27 of 2016, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Armenia, H.E. Ivan Volinkin, stated that the supply of weapons has already started.

In particular, the ambassador said: “…The loan agreement is in the implementation stage, and it is implemented according to the plan, the contractual obligations have been signed. The supplies have already begun, everything goes according to the plan”.

However, the reality turned out to be different. In its response to the letter submitted by the “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO, the RA Ministry of Finance informed us that by October 3 of 2016, there had been no use of loan money within the framework of the agreement.

Clause 2 of the second article of the agreement stipulates the date starting from which the use of any loan amount begins to be calculated.  In case of one part of the weapons, it is the date of the act certifying the end of each stage of the production cycle or another document, In case of the other part of the weapons, it is the date of the document approving the supply.

Hence, if there had been no use of loan money by October 3, then no weapons could have been supplied to the Armenian side within the frames of the agreement by that day. This comes to contradict the Russian ambassador’s statement (made 6 days before, on September 27) that “the supplies have already begun”.