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Armenia has acquired MQ-35 V-BAT reconnaissance drones from the United States, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced during a meeting with American Vice President JD Vance on February 9.
“We have made significant progress in the fields of Armenia-U.S. military and defense partnership. In continuation of the bilateral longstanding security cooperation and the ‘Eagle partner’ military exercises ongoing for three consecutive years now, Armenia acquired from the United States V-BAT unmanned aerial vehicles,” Pashinyan stated.
The primer added the effectiveness of the drones has been proven through extensive use experience and will significantly contribute to strengthening Armenia’s defense capabilities.
Pashinyan also stated that the drone deal was implemented within the framework of the U.S. program on foreign military sales.
Vance, from his side, revealed the cost of the deal, saying that the U.S. had sold drones worth $11 million to its “good friend” Armenia.
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The V-BAT is produced by Shield AI. It features a single-engine ducted fan that enables it to take off and land vertically in confined spaces and to shift from hover to horizontal flight. Its autonomous software, branded as Hivemind, includes visual odometry navigation capabilities for operating in GPS and communication denied environments.
The drone has an endurance of more than 13 hours, maximum speed of 90 kilometers per hour, and a service ceiling of 5,500 meters.
Click to see full-size image. (X)In January of last year, Shield AI revealed that examples of the V-BAT were deployed and tested in Ukraine sometime during 2024.
Soon after this announcement, specifically in May, a report by Forbes revealed that a V-BAT partially severed three fingers of a U.S. Navy sailor who was helping it to land. Following this incident, which took place in April of 2024, U.S. military customers imposed restrictions on its flight, while they investigated this matter for several months. Later, Shield AI modified the V-BAT so that it no longer required human assistance to launch and land.
A single V-BAT costs anywhere from $500,000 all the way up to $1 million, which means that Armenia could get ten or more for $11 million.
At its core, the deal is likely an Armenian attempt to build military partnership with the U.S. Armenia spent the last few years boosting military cooperation with both France and India by buying howitzers, multiple rocket launchers, armored vehicles, radars and air defense systems from the two. Fear of Western sanctions against Russia was the main motive behind this move.
All recent deals with France, India, and even the U.S. are unlikely to change the balance of power with Azerbaijan in favor of Armenia. With it much larger finical resources, Azerbaijan maintains a qualitative military edge.
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https://hawarnews.com/ar/137112
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putler has betrayed syria, armenia, serbia and venezuela. he will soon to betray iran. if bashar al-assad were not his prostitute, he would kill him. putler prefers erodgan and aliyev, and i hope that trump, in his arrogance, will open the door to the election of obama.
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putler has betrayed armenia, serbia, syria and venezuela. armenians are the smartest and iranians are the dumbest. the armenians have realized that they have been betrayed and are not as stupid as the iranians and their ayatollah.
question is will this knowledge save them. turkey was too important to the usa so they abendoned the kurds and the turks want to kill the armenians more then the kurds. so do you think the wish of the turks to kill thet armenians will be negated by the usa?
seems like both the us and russia thrive on all the war. both military industrial complexes are very profitable these days…
not to mention, turkey is a big wild card salivating at all the chaos brought on by the supremacist kikes. the turks want a big piece of the great israel expansion… and they should. no one is there to stop them — certainly not the us with its decadence.
dumb monkey armenian –if turks were more competent these half transgenders would have lost more than nogorno karabahk
turks got to test western drone technology against russian tech and tactics as a test run for the ukraine war. they did what they were told to do. two jobs test the drones and show that russian tech kann be defeated by western drones to embolden the ukrainians and the second was to show the armenians that russia wont safe them.
what a racket they have running. taxpayers have no say
armenia should cling to his neighbours and local politics. if they’ll trust the satanic cult called usa & co, they will face the same fate like all former ‘allies’ of usa. even europe is about to beeing devoured by the satanic cult. by the way: actually we can clearly see how the downfall of those who trust usa (the kurds in syria) is look like. they too were impressed by the toy weapons back then. now their families are facing rape, headchopping and dire humilation.
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putin is still holding his dick in his hand while they double bang him