English Wikipedia, drawing on Anokhin and Bykov’s Russian reference work on Stalin’s fighter regiments, dates military flying at Erebuni to 1938, when the 4th Voroshilov Aviation Squadron was stationed here with Polikarpov I-15, I-16 and I-153 fighters. In 1939 the 84th Fighter Aviation Regiment was formed on the airfield.

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 the regiment became a nursery for new units. In July 1941 an "84th A" regiment was created on I-153s and later renumbered the 348th Fighter Aviation Regiment; a second regiment of the same name, formed on 30 July 1941, became the 101st Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. The 84th itself was dissolved on 24 December 1942. The English-language sources checked say almost nothing about Erebuni between 1942 and the 1990s, and this page does not fill that gap from memory.

Russia’s 102nd Military Base was formed on 1 September 1994 from the Soviet 127th Motor Rifle Division, and the treaty of 16 March 1995 gave it 25 years, Kommersant reported in 2007; Armenia charges no rent and supplies utilities. In May 1996 the 3624th Air Base at Erebuni became part of the 102nd base, and an aviation agreement followed on 27 September 1996, according to Wikipedia. In 2010 the treaty was extended to 2044.

Its fighters came in 1998 and 1999. Wikipedia lists four batches of MiG-29s: five on 16 December 1998, five on 26 February 1999, four on 18 June 1999 and four on 22 October 1999, 18 in all, forming the 426th Fighter Squadron. Kommersant also gave 18 in 2007, alongside the 700th aviation control centre. Later published figures differ: RIA Novosti wrote of "at least 16" MiG-29s in 2013 and of 16 in 2014, while Russia Beyond in 2016 spoke of three MiG-29 squadrons at the 102nd base. None of these is an official current count.

The Armenian Ministry of Defence says its air defence has stood joint combat duty with Russia since 15 April 1999. A Joint Air Defence System of the Caucasus was signed in December 2015; Russia Beyond reported that President Putin sent it to the State Duma on 7 October 2016, for five years with a five-year extension. Armenia’s defence minister Seyran Ohanyan said it would let Armenia use Russian "fourth-generation multi-role jet fighters, S-300 systems".

On 21 November 2013 Armenia’s deputy defence minister Ara Nazaryan told a government meeting that the Russian base at Erebuni would receive 18 helicopters and extra space for helicopter pads, administrative buildings and fuel storage, RIA Novosti reported. On 17 January 2014 the Southern Military District said it had formed the squadron, with Mi-24P attack helicopters and Mi-8MT and Mi-8SMV transport and jamming helicopters, whose crews were training at Rostov-on-Don.

The first large delivery came later than planned. According to Deutsche Welle, as cited by Wikipedia, six Mi-24Ps and one Mi-8MT flew in from an air base in Russia’s Krasnodar region on 8 December 2015; DW headlined the move as helicopters stationed near Turkey. Russian sources have not published the squadron’s strength since.

Armenia’s own aviation has flown from Erebuni since the 1990s, though the ministry rarely names its bases. Tom Cooper’s 2004 order of battle, as given by Wikipedia, names Erebuni and Gyumri as the main bases and places a composite helicopter regiment at Yerevan. On 4 November, in 2008 according to Wikipedia, an Armenian Mi-24 preparing for a training flight crashed on the airfield, killing Captain Arshak Nersisyan, A1plus reported.

The Ministry of Defence shows the shared arrangement at work. On 29 June 2021 the acting defence minister, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, visited Erebuni, where the head of the Aviation Department, Colonel Gagik Aslanyan, and the Russian base commander, Colonel Alexander Petrov, presented the aircraft and discussed joint combat duty. On 25 January 2022 the Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Artak Davtyan, accepted new multi-role helicopters at Erebuni; the ministry did not name the type or the number. Where Armenia’s four Su-30SM fighters are based has not been stated in the sources checked.

On 9 November 2020, the day before the ceasefire that ended the Karabakh war took effect, Azerbaijani forces shot down a Russian Mi-24 of the 102nd base with a man-portable missile near Yeraskh, inside Armenia, as it escorted a convoy; two crew were killed and one injured. Azerbaijan called it an accident and apologised, and Russia’s foreign ministry welcomed its taking responsibility. The published accounts do not name the airfield the helicopter flew from.

Armenia froze its participation in the CSTO in February 2024 and relations with Moscow have worsened since; in June 2026 Russia recalled its ambassador after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan rejected its call for a referendum on EU membership, Al Jazeera reported. The base treaty still runs to 2044, and none of the sources checked reports a change at Erebuni.