Armenia has held its first military parade since 2016, roughly a week ahead of the parliamentary elections, showcasing weapons acquired since 2022.
The parade in Yerevan to mark Republic Day on Thursday lasted over two hours and featured military equipment purchased from seven countries, including France and India, alongside Armenian-made drones, which authorities said earlier in May the country had begun exporting.
In his address, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Republic Day was ‘being marked in a completely new historical context’, arguing that after ‘nearly 35 years of conflict, peace has been established’ between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries initialled a peace deal in August 2025 during a summit in Washington, but the treaty has yet to be officially signed.
‘Peace is what the First Republic of Armenia lacked in order to preserve and develop its independence, and the absence of peace became the key reason why the three countries of the South Caucasus, after declaring independence in 1918, successively lost that independence in 1920’, Pashinyan said, adding that lessons had been drawn from history.
‘The established peace, its further institutionalisation, the development and strengthening of the state’s legal foundations, transforming Armenia from a deadlock of conflict into a Crossroads of Peace — including through the implementation of the TRIPP [Trump Route] project — as well as ensuring the security, freedom, and prosperity of its citizens, are our strategic priorities’.
Pashinyan said the parade was intended as a report to Armenian society, presenting what he described as a ‘new Armed Forces […] equipped with new weaponry, new uniforms, and a new doctrine’.
‘The core of this doctrine is the following: the army’s sole mission is to defend the internationally recognised sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and our army should not be used outside Armenia’s internationally recognised territory, except for peacekeeping missions carried out on the basis of international treaties’, Pashinyan said.
He reiterated that such an approach was adopted in October 2022 when Armenia and Azerbaijan recognised each other’s territorial integrity — including recognising Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan — which paved the way for ‘what you will see today’, implying the purchased weapons.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
‘Prior to 2022, international markets for weapons and military equipment were largely closed or difficult to access for the Republic of Armenia, as international partners refused to supply Armenia with arms, arguing that they were convinced Armenia would use them outside its internationally recognised territory’, Pashinyan said.
Discussing the domestic arms industry, Pashinyan said it was ‘taking its first but confident steps toward securing a stable position in the international market’. He said that since 2022, the government had invested around ֏170 billion ($460 million) into the defence industry, ‘and today we have results we can be proud of’.
The last full military parade showcasing Armenia’s arsenal was held in 2016 under ex-President Serzh Sargsyan, marking the 25th anniversary of independence. In 2018, after Pashinyan came to power, a smaller-scale parade marking the 100th anniversary of the First Republic of Armenia was held, but it did not include a display of weaponry.
The parade came just over a week ahead of the 7 June parliamentary elections, with some observers seeing it as part of Pashinyan’s electoral campaign.
A new Saakashvili?
Ahead of the parade, on Wednesday, former president Robert Kocharyan, whose Armenia Alliance is currently trailing in third place in the polls, compared Pashinyan to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, accusing him of attempts to ‘incite things, sharpen the situation, get drawn into geopolitical games’.
He recalled Georgia’s 2007 and 2008 military parades, which showcased Western-supplied equipment.
Kocharyan claimed that during a 2007 meeting in Batumi, Saakashvili praised the army he had built, saying the Russian army was ‘falling apart’.
‘I told him: “Are you out of your mind? You don’t fully understand what kind of story you could end up in”. Exactly two months after that parade, they attacked Tskhinvali [Tskhinval], if I’m not mistaken, 22 Russian peacekeepers were killed, and within three days the Russian army was near Tbilisi’, he said.
‘You cannot build an army through performative steps’, Kocharyan added.
Separately, the Strong Armenia Alliance of Russian–Armenian tycoon Samvel Karapetyan said the parade was aimed at ‘creating the illusion of security and once again deceiving the public’.
‘Dear citizen, you should know that security is not built through military parades. Security is built through strong and dignified leadership and a strong state — one that has a strong economy, strong diplomacy, a professional army, and political will’, the statement said.
