New Delhi: A captain of the Armenian army has been arrested by its National Security Service for spying for a foreign country and passing on information related to certain equipment purchased from India.
According to the country’s news agency NewsAM, the officer was hired by a foreign agency in early 2021 to give secret intel.
The report said: “In April-May 2021, he handed over military information constituting a state and service secret to a representative of a foreign special service, including information on military equipment purchased from India, for which he received money twice and a mobile phone from a representative of a foreign special service as payment.”
The date of the incident, according to sources, indicated that the man sold information on Swathi, a weapon-locating radar.
The ex-Soviet republic had bought four indigenous Swathi weapons in 2020 from India which were delivered in the backdrop of its conflict with Azerbaijan.
Since then, Armenia has contracted India for the supply of anti-tank missiles and multi-barrel rocket launchers, among other types of munitions, all of which was executed in 2022.
The latest equipment on Armenia’s shopping list is the mounted 155-mm, 39-calibre artillery system manufactured by Bharat Forge, a private defence firm part of Pune-based conglomerate Kalyani Group.
This was the first artillery order for the Kalyani Group — the maker of multiple indigenous gun systems yet to be procured by the Army.
This is not the first time that Armenia has arrested its own officers for spying, the last being in November 2022, when it arrested a Major-rank officer.
In February last year, it had busted a module of 19 military personnel involved in spying for a foreign entity.
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