To understand the state of Armenia’s army today, you don’t need to listen to official reports or admire military parades. 

Here, I recount my experience after receiving notice of a 25-day training camp and being sent to Armenian army frontline positions.

(The 25-day training camps are designed to improve the military skills of reservists, provide professional training, master new weapons and equipment, and increase combat readiness. They are mandatory for all Armenian citizens between the ages of 20 and 55 registered in the army’s reserve forces. Armenia had an estimated 210,000 army reservists in 2024 according to data tracked by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.)

On June 10, at 12:00, I reported to the military commissariat. After submitting all the necessary documents, I left the military commissariat building and waited to be sent off. After waiting for three hours, the head of the military commissariat finally came out and said that they had made a mistake: they had issued notices to three more people than planned.

This “unexpected” confession led to lengthy negotiations. After about an hour of negotiations, the head of the military commissariat managed to convince three people to withdraw and sent them home. The rest of us headed to one of the military units to receive weapons and equipment and be assigned according to units.

It is difficult to describe in words how inefficient the assignment of posts was.

The state spends a lot of money to teach, for half a year in a training unit, a specific military skill to each conscript soldier. Soldiers then spend another sixteen months mastering that skill. 

Several years after completing their military service, ex-soldiers arrive at a training camp and are expected to remember the knowledge they had received. At the camp, however, soldiers are assigned to posts that are completely unfamiliar to them. This approach shows that the real goal of the training camps is not to create a professionally prepared and combat-ready mobilization resource, but simply to ensure the necessary number of people so that they can perform combat duty. In this situation, judge for yourself how justified the reduction of the term of compulsory conscript military service was.

Before moving to combat positions, we spent some time in a tent camp located in one of the training centers. I leave aside the domestic problems there - the lack of water, the condition of the tents, etc., because they were nothing compared to the problems that existed at the combat positions.

On June 19, we made our way to the combat positions. Before going to the positions, we were taken to see the fortifications that the Ministry of Defense had recently been actively advertising. Some of the troops with me believed that they would be performing combat duty in positions with similar equipment. But the sad reality is that the combat positions on the front line, where the soldiers are on duty right now, have little resemblance to the advertised fortifications.

Our position was under the direct fire of the enemy. There were no hiding places, no bunkers, nor elementary foxholes to shelter from potential artillery fire. In the event of a possible attack, it would have been almost impossible to get out of there alive.

There was no large-caliber weapon in our position. We didn’t even have a Kalashnikov machine gun. Instead, we had cartridges for those machine guns. We didn’t have a grenade launcher either, but we had grenade launcher shells. It was also amazing that we had 5.45 mm cartridges, which are intended for the AK-74, but, unfortunately, we didn’t have AK-74s.

The absurdity continued in the personnel list: there were two commanders of the support detachment in the position, a crew of the Kord large-caliber machine gun without the Kord, and an ATS detachment without the ATS.

The maintenance of the weapons is a separate story. We were provided with AK-103 rifles in brand new condition. However, for twelve of the fourteen days we spent at the position, it was either fog, rain, or hail. The weapons were rusting, and we were not provided with oil for cleaning them. The weapon oil arrived at the position only on the eleventh day. We tried to clean our guns but there were areas where the rust never came off.

The Azerbaijani position opposite us was about 150 meters away. Sometimes at night, the Azerbaijanis would shine large flashlights on us, trying to pressurize or provoke us.

Everything I saw during the 25-day training camp at the posts entrusted to our group proves that the army’s problems are deep and systemic. We need safe trenches, properly assigned personnel, and basic weapon oil right now. 

The entire exercise was pure theatrics at best and the curtain hiding this farce will open eventually. And it’s better for it to be torn open when admitting one’s own mistakes, rather than during another military clash.

Another small detail in closing. We didn’t even have an ax to chop wood, and it was cold at the top.

Photo: Hetq archive