Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he experienced deep emotional turmoil after the 44-day war in 2020.

Speaking to reporters on May 22, Pashinyan said the aftermath of the war led him to conclude that Armenia had been drawn into a “trap” through the Karabakh movement, adding that he is now proud to have helped lead the country out of that “trap.”

He revealed that he stopped praying daily for the first time in his life after November 8, 2020. The armistice that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war was signed on November 9, 2020.

“After that, I observed a long fast; for one week I neither ate nor drank anything. If you are asking about my emotions, those were my emotions. But then I began to think: what happened and why? Step by step, I came to understand that Armenia had been placed in a trap through the Karabakh movement, and that trap must be escaped from. I am happy and proud that I managed to lead Armenia out of that trap. The emotion is connected to something else — I see that today certain people, acting within the logic of espionage activity, want to drag Armenia back into the trap of conflict,” he said when asked what he felt after the 2020 war and the 2023 Azerbaijani takeover of Karabakh.

Pashinyan added that he is an emotional person and said he had been the same way when he was a journalist and opposition lawmaker.

“Yes, I am an emotional person — is that news to you? When I was an opposition MP and a journalist, was I not emotional? Human beings are emotional by nature; I cannot imagine a person without emotions. A person without emotions is either a plank of wood or a brick. Unfortunately, in the political sphere we see such blunt instruments being used by various forces,” Pashinyan said.

He said that afterwards he resumed his prayers and also began learning psalms on that occasion, because he felt a need to fill a spiritual void.