Whenever someone reaches out and asks for my opinion on the current situation in Armenia, I find it most effective to simply direct them to Mikael Minasyan’s Requiem series. However, knowing that most people are unlikely to put in the hours necessary to go through all of them, I thought it would be useful to summarize the main points made in each episode so far.
Requiem 1 / Artsakh
Promotion of Traitors
Argishti Karamyan, the twenty nine year old head of the National Security Service, was forced to resign due to a corruption scandal in which he sold Armenian passports to suspected terrorists so that they may have visa-free access to Russia. Argishti Karamyan does not have access to the cellphone number of the head of Russian state intelligence. In fact, there are almost no communications taking place between the intelligence agencies of the two nations.
Vaghinak Sargsyan was the head of the peacekeeping force which joined the revolutionary protesters in 2018. He was fired on May 6th by Vigen Sargsyan for this blatant act of disobedience and disloyalty. As a sign of the “meritocracy” that was to come, Nikol Pashinyan promoted him to Commander of the National Security Service Border Guard Forces. On October 26th, 2020 he was fired for treason.
The Physical Disarmament of the Nation
Russia was known to deliver free and heavily discounted advanced weapons systems to Armenia over the years. However, following the change in government, Armenia stopped receiving free weapons. Simply because Russia could not trust that those weapons would not be handed over or sold to third countries.
Pashinyan removed the 2017-2025 national strategic military armament plan which was implemented based on lessons learned from the April War. The purpose of the plan was to guide future weapons purchases based on the shortcomings seen in the face of new technologies utilized during the April War.
Pashinyan reduced in size the reserve regiments that were specifically created to provide support in the case of such a war.
Diplomatic Destruction
Nikol Pashinyan’s often repeated phrase that “the Artsakh resolution must be acceptable to the people of Artsakh, that of Armenia proper, and that of Azerbaijan” allowed Azerbaijan the use of the diplomatic weapon that Armenia had managed to suppress for thirty years: the introduction of a representative of the so-called “Azerbaijani community of Karabakh”. A representative who would go on to be granted an audience with the heads of the OSCE Minsk group.
Desperate to create the image of a legitimate commander in chief, Nikol Pashinyan intentionally exaggerated the light Tavush skirmishes into the victory in the so called “Tavush War”, and handed out dozens of military crosses. In the process, he destroyed Armenia’s thirty-year carefully-crafted image as the side on the defensive, instead painting it as the aggressor.
Similarly, the shortsighted statement that “Artsakh is a part of Armenia, and that’s that” destroyed this thirty-year carefully-crafted message that the conflict is between the people of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, and that this is a matter of self-determination.
After eighteen months of deceit and denial as to what was being negotiated between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with Zohrab Mnatsakanyan saying nothing was being negotiated, it was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that disclosed in January of 2020 that it was the staged settlement that Armenia and Azerbaijan were negotiating on. This settlement envisioned Armenia first withdrawing from all territories outside the former Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, and then a vote being held with what remained of Artsakh to determine its future.
Stripping the Nation of Leaders
In the 30 months that Pashinyan held power before the war, he introduced a reign of chaos in the Armed Forces by changing the Chief of Staff twice and changing the leaders of eight of the nine sectors of the frontline, multiple times.
The so-called March 1 investigation was simply an excuse to strip the Armed Forces of Arshavir Gharamyan, Samvel “Oganovsky” Karapetyan, Levon Mnatsakanyan, Yuri Khachaturov, and Seyran Ohanyan, while removing from the equation Robert Kocharyan and his strong ties to the Russian elite.
The dishonest and completely falsified Manvel Girgoyan arrest video was produced and editted at the Հ1 state broadcast television headquarters. The entire purpose of the operation was to crush and disband Yerkrapah.
The war began seven days after Nikol Pashinyan’s years long campaign to dismantle the Constitutional Court finally succeeded, with him finally appointing his candidate to the position of chairman of the Constitutional Court. Without such a step, the court could have nullified any agreement Nikol Pashinyan signed.