French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said his country has signed a deal to provide CAESAR self-propelled howitzers to Armenia, a move that's likely to further raise anger in Azerbaijan and Russia toward France.
The contract comes as Yerevan edges closer to the West through military and other ties and further from traditional ally Russia, following Armenia's defeat last year by Caucasus archfoe Azerbaijan to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and other areas internationally recognized as Azerbaijani but controlled for decades by ethnic Armenians.
Lecornu announced the CAESAR deal on June 18 after a meeting in Paris with Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian, hailing it as a "new important milestone."
He said Paris "continue[s] to strengthen our defense relationship" with Armenia.
The CAESAR is a self-propelled 155-millimeter, 52-caliber cannon whose range with advanced projectiles exceeds 50 kilometers.
It has been used extensively in the ongoing war in Ukraine against invading Russian forces and is compatible with NATO-standard ammunition.
Since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian took over six years ago, Armenia has gradually shifted its diplomatic and military efforts away from Russia and toward the West.
At the same time, Yerevan has accused longtime power broker Moscow and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (SCTO) of offering little help to keep Azerbaijan at bay. The CSTO is an alliance of six ex-Soviet states -- Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
In a sign of rising tensions, Russia last month recalled its ambassador to Armenia for consultations without explanation after Pashinian accused two unnamed CSTO members of helping Azerbaijan prepare for a brief but intense offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
Russia has worked closely with Belarus in its war on Ukraine, including by staging invasion operations from Belarusian territory.
A week ago, Pashinian said Armenia would formally quit the CSTO, whose members "are not fulfilling their contractual obligations but are planning a war against us with Azerbaijan."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused Pashinian’s administration of "leading things to the collapse of Russian-Armenian relations" at the behest of the West.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pashinian discussed the worsening rift when they met in Moscow on May 8 after a Eurasian Economic Union summit.
Armenia and France signed agreements on increased cooperation in military supplies last fall, about a month after an Azerbaijani offensive retook its remaining lands around Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenian forces supported by Yerevan.
In December, the French Senate urged Armenia to accelerate its familiarity with howitzers as quickly as possible.