ArmInfo. Twenty-five percent of Armenia's budget goes to weapons and the army, defense, i.e. 6.3% of GDP. This was stated by Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan in an interview with RTVI.
When asked whether Armenia is arming itself today, Khachaturyan gave an affirmative answer. At the same time, he added that Yerevan both buys weapons from different countries and produces them itself.
When asked whether it is possible to say that the country has no security problems under such conditions, the head of state admitted that there are problems. According to him, these are not problems of one year - these are problems that have accumulated over decades. He added that the current Armenian authorities now want to eliminate all this.
"Twenty-five percent of the budget goes to weapons and the army, defense, i.e. this is 6.3% of GDP. Now the new established standard for European countries is 5-6% of GDP, before that they spent 1-1.5% of GDP. This is a huge amount of money for our budget and for our country too. The same thing, the same figures for Azerbaijan, the same figures," he noted.
At the same time, Khachaturyan emphasized that as an economist, he generally believes that this is the worst thing that could be thought of - spending money on weapons. He is sure that it is necessary to do so, to agree so, to establish such relations so as not to arm at all.
At the same time, he wondered how normal it is to work 24 hours a day for weapons?
"Why is it done so that you have enemies around you? What is Armenia doing now? Armenia is now busy establishing normal relations with all our neighbors. Before, it was exactly as you said: we had enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, and we had fraternal relations or good neighborly relations with other countries. It should not be that around you, especially neighboring countries, were hostile to you. This means a failure of diplomacy," he added.
At the same time, Khachaturn emphasized that if Armenia spent only $400 million on military expenses until 2018, now it spends $1.7 billion, i.e. count how many times more - 4 or 5 times more. At the same time, he complained that the previous expenditures were insufficient, and as it turned out, the army was not ready for war.
"We are now preparing for the worst, but I am sure that in reality I am sure, as the Prime Minister always says, that we will have peace in the region, in our relations with Azerbaijan. The same applies to Turkey, the same applies to all the countries with which we are surrounded, and with all the countries with which we have normal political and economic relations," the president said.
When asked whether a war in the South Caucasus is possible, Khachaturyan said no.
Earlier, Armenian Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan said that against the backdrop of the initialing of the peace agreement with Azerbaijan in Washington, the country's authorities plan to reduce the share of defense spending in the 2026 budget, compared to 2025. This is already included in the draft budget, he noted. At the same time, it was unclear whether this was a reduction in absolute amounts or only a reduction in the share in the budget structure while maintaining the current level of spending.
The next day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, commenting on the statement of the head of the Ministry of Finance, noted that Armenia does not intend to increase the military budget in 2026. "Perhaps there will be no significant increase in spending or increase in defense spending in the 2026 budget at all. I think this is logical, at least this is our assessment at the moment," Pashinyan said.
