Experts estimate the cost of restoring the combat-readiness of Armenia’s Armed Forces at about $3 billion. Second President Robert Kocharyan stated this at Thursday’s press conference for Russian media, Sputnik-Armenia reports.

"Turkey's influence in the region is growing. We [Armenia], as a military-political ally of Russia, lost [the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war], Azerbaijan, as an ally of Turkey, won. I believe we need to find a formula for integration with Russia that will allow us to quickly restore our armed forces," Kocharyan said.

The Armenian authorities, hiding behind military secret, are not talking about the scale of material and human losses in the war, he said, and added that according to experts, about $3 billion is needed to restore the Armenian army. "It is necessary to restore the Armed Forces as the most combat-ready army in the region," Kocharyan said.

The former president added that in order to achieve this goal, first of all, effective governance is needed. According to him, there is a lot of work ahead, for which a public consolidation and the presence of intellectual elite is also needed, which is able to foresee threats and find solutions.