Turkmenistan shows new weapons
A lavish military parade held in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashkhabad to celebrate the 25th anniversary of country’s independence has revealed the previous unimaginable scale of new weapons procurement.
The former Soviet republic demonstrated a bizarre mixture of modern Chinese-made long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, new armoured vehicles, unmanned air vehicles and heavy rocket systems.
Turkmenistan is a very closed state, with no information released on its weapons procurements, so the Independence Day parade was the only chance to take a glimpse at the progress in the modernisation of its armed forces, achieved thanks to sharply increased defence spending in recent years.
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