The government’s draft 2026 budget unveiled on Thursday calls for 563 billion drams ($1.47 billion) in funding for Armenia’s armed forces, down from 665 billion drams allocated for this year. The proposed reduction contrasts with Azerbaijan’s plans to continue boosting spending on defense and national security which is projected to total $5 billion in 2025.
Tigran Abrahamian, a parliament deputy from the opposition Pativ Unem bloc, described it as a “gift” to Baku and a message to the effect that “Armenia lacks the political will to resist and fight.”
“Azerbaijani troops continue to remain in the sovereign territory of Armenia, a large number of issues in negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan have not yet been resolved in any way or are left in limbo without deadlines, and Azerbaijan clearly states that it relies primarily on force and acts from a position of force,” Abrahamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Artur Khachatrian, a lawmaker representing the opposition Hayastan bloc, went farther, saying that with the defense spending cut Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is “executing Azerbaijan’s order.” He cited Azerbaijani officials’ earlier claims that Armenia’s “militarization” is one of the obstacles to peace between the two countries.
“The reality is that [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev has … threatened many times that he will not tolerate the growth of Armenia's military potential and alleged a ‘militarization’ of Armenia, even though there is no militarization and Armenia is just restoring its lost potential,” said Khachatrian.
“Nobody [from Azerbaijan] has made such a demand which we have taken into account and based on that made such a decision,” countered Alen Simonian, the parliament speaker and a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party.
For his part, Deputy Defense Minister Arman Sargsian downplayed the spending cut, saying that it will not affect ongoing defense “reforms” declared by the government. But he declined to say whether it will have an impact on further arms acquisitions for the Armenian military.
Armenia’s defense spending has risen steadily and significantly since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinian first signaled his intention to reverse this trend about two weeks after an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty was initialed during his talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on August 8. Pashinian has since repeatedly claimed that that put an end to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
His domestic critics argue that Aliyev did not drop his preconditions for signing the treaty. They also say that even if the peace deal is signed it will not preclude further Azerbaijani military attacks on Armenia.
In what the critics see as another blow to national defense, the Armenian Defense Ministry drafted earlier this month legislation that would shorten compulsory military service in the country from two years to 18 months. The measure, if approved by the parliament, will likely downsize Armenia’s conscription-based army which is already grappling with recruitment problems. Pashinian declared on September 15 that the army must be the least important tool for ensuring the country’s security.