After the war of 2016, we realized that we have entered a period of other types of wars, military operations, and we had to make appropriate changes. However, we could not reach the level that would allow us to adequately fight against the technology used by the adversary. Raffi Kassarjian, Executive Director of the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE) of Armenia, said this in a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am.
Reflecting on the use of Armenian-made drones in the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war, Kassarjian stated that a certain number of such UAVs, and even those which have reached the pilot period of some enterprises, were used in this war. "We could have achieved much better results in this matter as well, but it is also not the case that nothing has been done. At the same time, we learned a lot during this war, which is taken into account today when preparing a new generation of UAVs," he said.
The UATE is currently working on both the projects commissioned by the Ministry of Defense and the implementation of the ideas of its own specialists and enterprises.
When asked whether the IT sector of Armenia had a shortage of the scientific mind and specialists, Kassarjian responded: "Naturally, the funding given to scientific mind is small, even for countries like us. The state must increase funding. Within a few years, we have set a target for those sums to grow and reach 1 percent of the GDP and 4 percent of the state budget. The state must also create the right tasks. The state must participate in the work of this sphere, both financially and ideologically."
And when asked how Armenia was now preparing for the next possible wars, and what the country’s respective capabilities were, Raffi Kassarjian emphasized: "Our whole community understands that we must work faster and in a directed way, make joint efforts to achieve the desired result. But you can't win with technology alone, even in the 21st century. Different types of military and industrial solutions must be integrated to the military strategy, tactics. In order to prepare for the next war, the militia, mobilization units must be ready from the very beginning. We must be ready for war not only technologically, but in general.”
Highlighting the priority issues in the IT sector of Armenia, the head of UATE underscored the educational gap, as there is an issue with the number and quality of good specialists, and there is also a need to return to Armenia the compatriots who are living abroad and are successful in this sector.