Recently a group of Armenian intelligentsia representatives on the initiative of the Public Council at RA Defense Minister (Chairman: Gegham Haroutyunyan) visited regiments of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s Army of Defense.
In Stepanakert they were welcomed by NKR Defense Minister Lieutenant General Movses Hakobyan. Answering the questions of the guests he mentioned that 30% of NKR AD are contract servicemen. Movses Hakobyan told also that the main achievement of the Artsakh liberation war against the Azeri aggressors is the NKR citizens new generation who do not imagine their existence inside other state – Azerbaijan.

Recently the third, final stage of TIR (total internal reflection) facilities “The best division, battery, account and agent” contest has been conducted in the RA AF. According to TIR troops Deputy Head Colonel A.Poghosyan, almost 150 servicemen – officers, warrant officers and soldiers participated in the contest. Control tasks were worked out according to the methodology drawn by the TIR Department specialists. The advantage of this methodology is that with its help it is possible to review many tactical norms. E.g. our accounts managed to bring ЗРК “С-125” from fighting to marching condition and back quicker than it is mentioned in the norms of the Soviet army. As a result of checking tasks the norms fulfillment time for RA AF “С-125” was considerably reduced.

It is difficult to say how many times the President of Azerbaijan went over again the RA AF military parade video, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Independence of Armenia, but fact is that from that knockout he recovered only recently, after a month from the 21st of September. Aliyev presented himself to his nation in a very cheerful way and started criticizing the parade of the Armenians. According to him, tanks were on carriages, that means “either there is no fuel or the equipment is faulty”; the Russians participated in the parade, which means “Armenia is the fore post of Russia; chaplains went marching, that means “the Armenians have no human resources for the army”.

On October 2-16 in all the military unities of the RA national army the competition «The best moto-infantry platoon» was conducted. Such a competition is conducted every year in the end of the education year’s summer phase. The best platoon is determined according to the programs of the RA AF military drill. During the competition the experience of leading methodologists on conducting military drill is being summarized, too.

Recently in the 4th Army Corpus tactical training with military firing has been conducted. According to the exercises scenario, one of the military units was brought to high military alertness, conducted a spurt and occupied the defensive line. The subunits conducted a defensive fight with a conditional enemy in the close touch conditions. In conditions, very close to military ones, a special attention was paid to the development of fire management skills of commanders of all levels.

Recently on the order of the RA AF General Staff’s Head in the training centre «Asparez» the competition of tanks and BMP crews has been conducted. The crews took exams on physical, technical, combatant drills, tactics and other subjects. After the theoretical exams all the crews fulfilled tasks on machine driving and military firing. During one of the tasks the crews, leading an unknown route, overcame the line of obstacles on military equipment.

According to military expert Artsroun Hovanesyan, from Libyan war we can make several conclusions:
1. Without USA participation NATO is not able to conduct full-scale military operations.
2. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the European countries to intensively disarm themselves. However after some time they would regret about that since the Eastern countries intensively arm themselves. The center of militarisation shifts from West to East.
3. Today no one from the powerful countries – USA, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Israel – is not willing to unite. Among these countries no military cooperation is noticed.