Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

An unpleasant incident has occurred in the Armenian-Russian military cooperation, which could jeopardize further cooperation in this sphere between the two countries.

A criminal case has been opened after the failure of the tender of the Armenian Defense Ministry for the supply of weapons, in which the Russian ORSIS company participated.

An ORSIS representative has told Russian media that in May 2019, the Armenian Defense Ministry for the first time announced a tender for the supply of military equipment worth several million dollars, and only the Russian company was able to satisfy the requirements of the competition. However, the tender was closed and the reasons were not explained.

After the incident, ORSIS turned to the appeal commission and to the lawyer, representing the interests of the company in Armenia. In the end, a criminal case was opened under the article "negligent attitude to service".

The company representative said that ORSIS has already turned to the military attache of the Armenian Embassy in Russia to clarify the situation with the tender for the supply of military equipment.

The Armenian Defence Ministry also admitted the fact of the initiation of a criminal case. The ministry representative said that additional information will be provided upon the end of the work of the investigating authorities.

The ORSIS representative also noted that the company has been supplying weapons, ammunition and scopes to Armenia for several years, and now they are in the blacklist of arms suppliers for the Armenian Armed Forces.

The representative refuted the statement of the Armenian Defence Ministry that ORSIS did not provide the necessary documents. The company says that for several weeks, it provided all the information that the Armenian Defense Ministry requested.

"As a result, it was announced to the company that we allegedly did not provide acts of reception and transmission on some items. Without any explanation of reasons, we were included in the blacklist of arms suppliers for the Armenian Armed Forces," the company representative complained.

The representative added that the Armenian Defense Ministry also demanded payment of several hundred thousand dollars under a bank guarantee, although by law the company should pay such compensation if it wins the tender and itself refuses to sign the contract.

"We turned to the appeal commission and asked for documents that were no longer directly related to the tender and at the last moment, it was announced that there weren’t several documents that we submitted. Moreover, they put the "top secret" stamp on the protocol of the appeal commission, although the tender itself was closed but unclassified," the company representative stressed.

He considers that the current situation threatens to disrupt the project for the construction of an ammunition plant in Armenia. It was assumed that the enterprise would be created through Russian investment of several million dollars.

Thus, as a result of the unreasonable actions by the Armenian Defense Ministry officials, this project is currently under threat.

These actions call into question Armenia’s already doubtful reputation as a participant in international trade, as well as prospects for the development of modern military production in the country and attraction of foreign investment.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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