It then spent much of the later part of World War II, from January 1, 1943,[8] onwards with the small 45th Army of the Transcaucasian Front, which was guarding the Soviet borders with Turkey.

In early 2005, the 102nd Military Base had 74 tanks, 17 infantry fighting vehicles, 148 armored personnel carriers, 84 artillery pieces, 18 MiG-29 fighters and several batteries of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.

The military base is part of a joint air defense system of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which was deployed in Armenia in 1995.

The bilateral treaty states that the Russian military will be in the base for 25 years, but Armenian authorities have said that if needed this time-frame can be reviewed, and exclusively in the direction of prolongation.

In August 2003 the base's commanding officer, General Major Alexander Titov, was dismissed for reportedly not maintaining military discipline and allowing corruption and the sale of state equipment.

In 2013, the chief commander of 102nd military base Andrey Ruzinsky said in an interview that "If Azerbaijan decides to restore jurisdiction over Nagorno-Karabakh by force the [Russian] military base may join in the armed conflict in accordance with the Russian Federation’s obligations within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Some argue that the presence of the base serves an obstacle to Western investment and reforms and that the Armenian public and political system that is too closely linked with the Russian leadership.

[citation needed] On 14 April 1999, two drunken soldiers, Denis Popov and Alexander Kamenev, armed with AK-74 rifles, went into the town and started a gunfight, killing two men, Vaghinak Simonyan and David Soghomonyan, and injuring 14.

[21][22] In an interview published on January 16 with News.am, Popov’s lawyer, Tamara Yailoian, claimed that her former client had been transferred to Russia “after two to three years,” and, “we later learned, set free.”[22] On 11 June 2004, a group of men attempted to enter the base and the soldiers stationed there opened fire on them killing Artur Pogosyan and Armen Aroyan, and injuring two others.

[23] Two children Artur Mkrtchyan and Mushegh Gevorgyan were killed by a mine on the training field in the vicinity of the military base on 7 April 2013.

The field was not fenced or signed to give proper warning, but nonetheless the command of the military based never punished anyone and also ignored the official complaints of the locals.