Armenian Government Says it Will Cap Defense Spending

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Amid a continuing military buildup in Azerbaijan, the Armenian government has announced plans to end significant annual increases in its defense expenditures that followed the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia’s defense budget for this year is projected at 665 billion drams ($1.7 billion), up by 20 percent from 2024. The figure is equivalent to almost one-fifth of the country’s 2025 state budget.

The Armenian military officially received 341 billion drams in 2020. It appears to have used the bulk of the increased funding for replenishing its arms stocks diminished during the disastrous war.

By comparison, Azerbaijan is due to spend a total of about $5 billion on defense and national security this year.

“I think that in our 2026 state budget we will probably have no substantial increase on defense expenditures or no increase at all,” Pashinyan told reporters on Thursday.

Finance Minister Vahe Hovannisyan similarly said earlier this week that the government is planning to lower next year the share of those expenditures in overall public spending. But he did not give any numbers. The government is expected to unveil its 2026 budget proposal in late September.
The announcements came less than two weeks after an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty was initialed during Pashinyan’s talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington. Pashinyan has since repeatedly claimed that that put an end to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

His domestic critics counter that Aliyev did not drop his preconditions for signing the treaty. They also say that it would not preclude further Azerbaijani military attacks on Armenia.
Aliyev on Thursday implicitly warned of the possibility of such military action and vowed to continue to reinforce Azerbaijan’s armed forces.

“If anyone’s sick mind thinks of provoking Azerbaijan, I think they will regret it again,” he said, repeatedly describing Armenia as an “enemy.”

Pashinyan congratulated, meanwhile, members of his cabinet on “peace established between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”