YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd newspaper of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: It is no secret that even after the first Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] war [in the early 1990s], Azerbaijan was busy with the work of enriching the army and acquiring weapons.

And it turns out that even after the 44-day devastating war in 2020, Azerbaijan's top goal remains the increase of the means of the armed forces.

Azerbaijan has publicized the amount spent on defense and national security in 2021. Zhoghovurd daily learned from Azerbaijani open sources that according to that document, in 2021 Azerbaijan spent 99.2 percent of the amount envisioned for defense and national security, which has exceeded the indicator for 2020 by 20.9 percent.

And what is the situation in Armenia after the 44-day war in 2020? According to the data of the RA draft budget for 2021, it was planned to allocate 16.9% of the budget expenditures to the defense sector (mostly to military defense). The [respective] increase is 1.3%. Let us note that Armenia's military spending will increase by about 11 percent in the 2022 budget.

But Azerbaijan continues to spend more and again increase the share of military spending. Azerbaijan has increased [this] spending by 20.9 percent—twice as much as RA. The appetite of that terrorist country is not diminishing in any way.