PARADE TO KARABAKH

The 95th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Azerbaijan Republic was marked on Wednesday with a large-scale military parade on Freedom Square - the main square of Baku.

The parade involved about 5,000 members of the personnel from all types of troops, formations, units, special purpose schools, as well as other armed groups, up to 300 pieces of military equipment and weapons systems, more than 100 combat aircraft and helicopters, and about 40 ships.

And this is only a small part of what is used in the Azerbaijani army, the head of state and supreme commander-in-chief, Ilham Aliyev, said while speaking before the parade. According to the president, the building of the army is the most important issue for Azerbaijan, taking into account the fact that the country is at war with neighbouring Armenia and that the many years of negotiations for a peaceful solution of the problems have failed so far. The level of technical equipment and discipline already allows the Azerbaijani army to execute the order of the supreme commander-in-chief to restore the territorial integrity of the country at any time. Nonetheless, as a peace-loving state Azerbaijan intends to fully utilize the potential of a peaceful settlement. And this cannot be achieved without impressive means of pressure on the opposite side.

And Azerbaijan has succeeded in this. The head of state said that by the scale of economic development and military buildup today, the country should be compared not even with the countries of the region but with leading countries of the world. If we talk about the military aspect, defence spending takes first place in the state budget of the country. Indeed, the pace of the development of defence building has reached such a scale that it cannot be compared with the similar situation in the same Armenia, which is not going to give up its territorial claims peacefully yet. Azerbaijan's military spending over the last 10 years has increased dramatically. Statistics are impressive: $ 163 million in 2003 and $ 3.7 billion in 2013. It is a growth of 22.6 times. For comparison, Armenia's defence budget for the current year is only about $ 451 million. The overall budget of this country does not even reach $ 2 billion.

Azerbaijan's supreme commander-in-chief said in his speech what Azerbaijan spends these funds on. Over the last few years, we have purchased about 100 combat and transport helicopters, dozens of combat aircraft, new anti-aircraft installations, tanks and other armoured vehicles, as well as artillery units "that are able to hit any enemy target". "And this process continues, and in the next few years, military spending will take the main place in the overall budget of Azerbaijan," the president promised.

At the same time, the president noted that Azerbaijan not only purchases the latest weapons abroad, but also pays great attention to building its own defence industry. There are dozens of military factories in the country, which produce 750 kinds of military products, including small arms, grenade throwers, mortars, aviation bombs, armoured vehicles and unmanned vehicles. And weapons produced in Azerbaijan, samples of which are traditional participants in various international exhibitions of new defence industry products, are already in strong demand among foreign buyers.

Some in Armenia believe that the time in the Karabakh settlement works for them. However, the results of development indicate the opposite, which was openly stated by the Azerbaijani president. "It's no secret that Azerbaijan is getting stronger day by day, while Armenia is becoming weaker. Our economic strength has grown in a non-comparable scale. We are several times ahead of the enemy in any field, and in some areas - by more than 10 times. And this difference will grow," he warned those who hope for the eternal preservation of the status quo in Nagornyy Karabakh.

The president expressed confidence that the historical and political factors, international law and military-economic power will have their impact on the just settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. "Azerbaijan will restore its territorial integrity in Nagornyy Karabakh and in the other occupied lands. The Azerbaijani flag will be raised in Xankandi and Susa," he said.

Aliyev said that Azerbaijan will never allow a second Armenian state to be created on its territory, and the powerful military capability further strengthens this position of Baku. The Azerbaijani army will have its say in the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, and the Azerbaijani flag will be raised in both Xankandi and Susa, the president said.

Local and foreign military equipment demonstrated at the parade confirms these words. In particular, Azerbaijani-made drones, armoured vehicles, rocket launchers, air defence missile systems and air defence systems were demonstrated at the parade. S-300 Favorit installation, T-90S tanks, as well as aircraft - modernized MiG-29 and Su-25, Mi-17, Mi-24, Ka-32 planes and others were demonstrated, too. Some samples of technology were demonstrated by Azerbaijan for the first time.

There is no doubt that the demonstration of military equipment was closely watched not only in Azerbaijan. The government of Armenia does not hide its anxiety about the rising military power of Azerbaijan. "The arming of Azerbaijan cannot but disturb Armenia," Armenian Minister of Defence Seyran Ohanyan openly acknowledged at the second forum "Political-Security Landmarks of the Formation of the Military Component of the CSTO", which was held in Yerevan almost at the same time as the parade in Baku.

Speaking of the CSTO. The concerns of the Armenian minister are easy to understand. Armenia, judging by publications in its media, has still not recovered from the shock, into which it was plunged by the recent publication of information about the supply "to hostile Azerbaijan by allied Russian" of advanced tanks and other equipment worth about $ 1 billion. It looks like Yerevan did not expect such a "betrayal" by its strategic partner - Russia. Armenia's intransigence in the negotiations on Nagornyy Karabakh was largely due to the confidence that the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Russia in particular will be the guarantors of the status quo in the conflict. In general, such guarantees from the Collective Security Treaty Organization are the main purpose of Armenia's membership in the organization. However, in recent years, Azerbaijan has strengthened its relations with Central Asian members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, as well as with Belarus, which is also a member of this bloc, and raised them to the level of strategic partnership. This in itself means that these countries clearly will not want to get involved in an armed conflict with Azerbaijan because of Armenia, as they have close political and economic relations with Azerbaijan. In these circumstances, Armenia regarded Russia as its last stronghold. And then it turns out that Russia supplies a large amount of arms to Azerbaijan, the purpose of which few people doubt.

The conclusion that should be drawn by the Armenian leadership as a result of all this is obvious. Armenia is unable to compete with Azerbaijan militarily and economically. Armenia will have to answer alone, without foreign help, for the occupation of foreign lands if the war over Nagornyy Karabakh and other Azerbaijani territories resumes, and the outcome of such a confrontation is clear. In this case, is it worth sacrificing the future of the Armenian people and the Armenian state in general for the sake of some ghostly nationalist ideas? The question, as it seems to us, is rhetorical.

Whatever may be said about the expediency of parades, they are quite revealing. In particular, parades in Baku and Yerevan demonstrate not only the incompatibility of military potential, but also the degree of the independence of the two countries. While Azerbaijan, relying solely on its possibilities, shows increasing global military power from parade to parade, Armenia hardly finds people and technology to show the public. The situation in this country is so critical that for some reason, traditional participants in recent parades in Yerevan, along with Armenian army servicemen, are Russian soldiers and their equipment from the 102nd military base in Gyumri.

The first parade of the armed forces of independent Azerbaijan was held in 1919. The further parades were held many years later when the country regained its independence: in 1992, 2008, 2011, and finally, the fifth parade - in 2013. The main wish voiced in Azerbaijan on the 95th anniversary of the armed forces was that the next parade should be held in liberated Karabakh...