Armenia`s defense budget 25% of national budget - president 

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.