Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday questioned the operation of the Russian Iskander missile systems.

He said that they "have not exploded, or  exploded by only 10 percent." Pashinyan commented thusly on former President Serzh Sargsyan's statement that the Armenian army could have used the Iskander missile system on the fourth day of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war last fall.

But in an interview with Govorit Moskva radio, Viktor Zavarzin, Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma, slammed the aforesaid statement by the Armenian PM. He noted that thus Pashinyan decided to emphasize his innocence in the result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"When a person wants to be innocent, he will blame the Iskanders, the Armenian people, and the military. That, of course, is not true. Iskander is a high-precision weapon, it has shown itself in various military exercises. It [i.e., Pashinyan's words] is an absolute lie and is not even subject to doubt.

It is no coincidence that the West often talks about bringing these short-range missiles into the negotiation process. They have been used many times and very accurately in Syria. I do not agree, to put it mildly, with Mr. Pashinyan's opinion," Zavarzin said.