Armenia will continue to acquire Russian weapons “very vigorously”, Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan said after his negotiations with the head of Russia’s state-owned arms exporter, Rosoboronexport on April 24.

Tonoyan and Rosoboronexport’s chief Alexander Mikheyev met on April 23 on the sidelines of an international security conference held in Moscow. “The parties reached a number of new agreements on expanding the scope of cooperation and ensuring its continuity”, the Armenian Defense Ministry said in a short statement on the meeting. Davit Tonoyan stated in Moscow that Russia will supply the first batch consisting of four aircrafts of the multifunctional Su-30SM fighter jets to Armenia in early 2020.

At the same time, the minister announced that Yerevan has already transferred the first tranche of the airplanes’ payments. Tonoyan stated that Armenia has big plans to acquire new armament, and that it will continue purchasing arms from Russia. “We [Armenia] will arm ourselves and rearm ourselves with great commitment”, Tonoyan said.

Meanwhile on April 25, Tonoyan met with his counterpart from Belarus, Andrey Ravkov, to discuss prospects of further military cooperation. The heads of the military establishments of the two countries approved the 2019 bilateral military cooperation plan. The plan envisions conducting several events on battle preparedness, operative planning, capital construction and military-technical cooperation.