Why Pashinyan rejected Putin's offer to save Shushi — new details emerge

In recent weeks, the Armenian society has unwittingly witnessed another episode of the protracted political action, in which the real agenda has again been supplanted by artificially constructed plots, the author of the Tribunal publication notes. We are talking about a strange, if not demonstratively contradictory story with the "divorce" and subsequent "reunion" of Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan — a story that, by all indications, is not private, but purely political in nature.

At first glance, it may seem that we are dealing with the personal lives of two public figures. However, this impression dissipates at the slightest attempt to compare the facts. More recently, the public was asked to believe in a break, distancing, even in some kind of "zeroing" of the family union. And now, a few weeks later, against the background of the approaching electoral cycle, the same figure — Anna Hakobyan — reappears next to the Prime Minister, accompanies him on public trips, is present in spaces whose maintenance is paid for by taxpayers.

A logical question arises: is this an inconsistency, a personal drama, or a carefully planned political combination?

The answer, as it seems, lies on the surface, if we consider what is happening not in isolation, but in the context of the information storm that broke out after the speech of former Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan.

For it was this speech that became the very event that not only disrupted the usual course of political discourse — it destroyed it. It destroyed to the ground all that long-standing construction of explanations, excuses and accusations on which the official version of the reasons for the military defeat was based.

Over the past few years, the same scheme has been insistently instilled in society: the "former" are to blame, Russia is to blame, the "looted army" is to blame, deserters are to blame, everyone is to blame — except those who directly made decisions during the war.

We were told that "Key-West" allegedly predetermined the fate of Karabakh long before 2020. We were told that the army was incapacitated because it was "looted." We were offered to believe in the mythology of "11 thousand deserters", which was supposed to explain the collapse of the front. Finally, we were offered an absurd formula about "Iskanders exploding by 10%", turning the tragedy into a farce.

And now — one performance crosses it all out.

The essence of Ohanyan's accusations is extremely specific and does not allow ambiguous interpretations. Of the 283 kilometers of the contact line, 265 kilometers were held for a month. The Agdam, Martakert, and Kelbajar directions remained under control. The failure occurred only in one section — the southern one, from Jabrail to Horadiza. And it was this section that was under the command of the First Army Corps of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, directly subordinate to the General Staff.

Ohanyan, as a person who knows the system from the inside, stressed that the key decisions on the use of troops in this direction were approved personally by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Nikol Pashinyan. Thus, two people are directly responsible for the catastrophic breakthrough of the enemy to Shushi — Chief of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan as the executor and Prime Minister Pashinyan as the supreme commander-in-chief, who approved the orders.

Testimonies of private conversations with the chief of the Armenian General Staff Onik Gasparyan, published by Aram Gabrielyanov, add new details to this picture: during the war, Pashinyan personally imposed a ban on seeking military support from Russia and personally gave orders to withdraw troops from positions on the outskirts of Shushi.

Here there are two issues that the authorities prefer not to notice, switching their attention to the scenes of family "disintegration" and "reunification", and other rubbish.

The first question. If 265 kilometers of the front were held, if fierce fighting was going on in three key directions, and the enemy could not advance, then why exactly in the southern sector, for which the Armenian General Staff was responsible, there was a catastrophic breakthrough? Why exactly where the command was carried out from Yerevan, and not from Stepanakert, did the enemy pass "almost at a walking pace"?

Question two. Who gave the order to withdraw troops from positions on the outskirts of Shushi? Who ordered to leave the village of Karintak, the loss of which largely predetermined the fall of the city? According to the testimonies published by Aram Gabrielyanov, former Chief of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan in private conversations directly pointed to Nikol Pashinyan. Gasparyan himself, we note, did not refute this information.

Let's take a break from political intrigues and family dramas for a moment. Let's remember what we are talking about.

We are talking about Shushi. About the city that was the heart of Artsakh, its spiritual capital, its fortress and its pride. Shushi did not fall because the enemy was stronger. Shushi fell because someone in Yerevan gave the order to withdraw the troops. Someone forbade asking for help. Someone decided that a military disaster was preferable to political responsibility.

And the price of this decision is thousands of dead. Thousands of mutilated destinies. The lost Artsakh. Tens of thousands of refugees who have lost everything. A whole generation that will never be the same.

This is not a defeat. This is a crime. And it should be called by its own name. And the criminals must stand before the tribunal.

PS. It is worth recalling that attempts to save Shushi were also made by Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally told how he offered Nikol Pashinyan to stop the war at the moment when The Azerbaijani Armed Forces occupied only insignificant territories of Karabakh and began negotiations to save Shushi. To which Pashinyan replied that he was going to fight on. So why did Pashinyan reject Putin's offer to keep Shushi?