Since July 1, the 3rd Army Corps of the RA Armed Forces has not had a commander, who is responsible for the defense of the areas under the army’s control in the northeastern border zone. And in Tavush, the second stage of the border demarcation process is still expected, as a result of which it is not yet known how many positions will be taken from the armed forces and will either be given to the Azerbaijani side, or will be handed over to the protection of the border guard troops of the National Security Service.

By the way, earlier we wrote that Pashinyan has decided to take the fortified regions from the army, which Suren Papikyan is so proud of.

And since July 1, the Special Forces, which was formed two years ago, does not have a commander. In November 2024, he was the commander of the Special Forces. appointed Levon Davidyan, who was released from his position on July 1 of this year. The current government, RA Defense Minister Suren Papikyan was particularly proud of the fact that there were no Special Purpose Forces as a separate military unit before, and it was during their time that it was formed, but now and then, the post of Special Purpose Forces Commander has been vacant for more than two weeks.

In March 2025, we we wrote that Azerbaijan considers the degree of armament of the special purpose unit of the RA Armed Forces to be a threat. In particular, caliber.az, which is close to the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, had an article to publish where they expressed dissatisfaction with the level of armament of the special purpose units of the RA Armed Forces and saw a danger in it, from modern video surveillance devices to sniper rifles, who noticed the training of the “Zinuj” special purpose unit in the report.

And this is when Aliyev after 44 days had announced, that he sees the strengthening of the country’s armed forces in the logic of the vision of the development of the special forces, therefore the strengthening of these forces should be on the permanent security agenda of the country, so it was no coincidence that after the 2020 war, the commander of the Special Forces of Azerbaijan, Lieutenant General Hikmet Mirzoyev the designation In the post of the commander of the ground forces – Deputy Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan. During these years, Aliyev increased the number of “Commando” special forces units, which are constantly in training and exercises.

According to Aliyev’s decision, Azerbaijan will participate in the parade dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Great Patriotic War in 2025. represented “Commando” is a group of special forces soldiers.

Continuing the topic, we should add that since July 1, the Department of Armaments and Technical Support of the Ministry of Defense has no head. We can make different assumptions as to what is the reason for the mentioned important positions to be vacant for more than two weeks. And this personnel episode related to the army is nothing new in the case of Nikol Pashinyan’s government.

Reminder: when on February 24, 2022 Artak Davtyan after the second appointment released For a long time, we had an acting head of the RA Armed Forces General Staff in the person of Kamo Kochuntsi: And various experts and ex-military men said that there are certain differences between the powers of the head of the General Staff and the acting head, and it cannot be considered that the position is not vacant. Naturally, the authorities did not agree, but there was a case when Kamo Kochunts, acting head of the State Security Council, did not participate. 

And that’s when we wrote that the head of the General Assembly, Akh is considered a member and if the authorities claim that there is no difference between the acting head of the General Staff of the General Staff and the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, then Kamo Kochunts, the acting chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, should have been present in some form. Moreover, in addition to Defense Minister Suren Papikyan, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs and Procurement Karen Brutyan participated in that session held in May 2022.

And until there is a suitable candidate for the head of the General Assembly, the power of Nikol Pashinyan decision is to introduce a change in the army management model and make the head of the General Staff the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, which, however, is unconstitutional, because the current RA of the Constitution according to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces is the direct commander of the armed forces and is the highest military official of the armed forces.

At the same time, the government decided that the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces will not be the official replacing the minister. Anyway, on July 14, 2022 Edward Asryan was appointed Head of the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces.

And Nikol Pashinyan, when he was presenting to the senior staff of the Armed Forces Edward Asryan, appointed as the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the First Deputy Minister of Defense, announced. “The right decision has been made.”

Although before that, on September 27, 2021, Edward Asryan was released from the position of the Chief of the Operational Main Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia – Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia.

At that time 168.am-the to write was that his 10-minute long conversation with Seyran Ohanyan, the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, head of the Hayastan faction, in the corridor, as well as Asryan’s addressing Seyran Ohanyan as “Mr. General” played a role in the release of the major general.

In this context, it should be noted that during the 44-day war, Edward Asryan was the head of the operational department of the main operational department of the RA Armed Forces.: And after the war, he already headed the operational headquarters of the General Directorate of Military Operations.

The operational main department of the RA Armed Forces General Staff is a structural leading unit of the general staff, which ensures the planning of the problems faced by the armed forces in peacetime and wartime conditions, and the operational management of the troops (forces). And during the 44-day war, we also failed in operational management.

At that time, we noticed that if Nikol Pashinyan considers the appointment of Edward Asryan as the head of the General Staff to be the right decision, or did not express dissatisfaction with the operational management of the army during the war, this does not mean that one day he will not express an opposite opinion, especially when he finds that the RA Armed Forces is not advancing his peace agenda in the way he had planned.

But as we can see, Edward Asryan has been advancing Pashinyan’s peace agenda very well these years, on the other hand, if Pashinyan wants to get rid of him, this will not have any role.

And now it remains to be understood whether Nikol Pashinyan wants to continue working with Suren Papikyan as the Minister of Defense after the elections, or whether he will choose the path of leading the army to another upheaval, because any such change in the power structures brings with it certain “upheavals”. From this it will also be clear how much Pashinyan appreciated the sacrifices of his party minister for the sake of the interests of the political leader, including at the expense of the reputation of the army and not only the reputation.

We have written many times that after the change of power, Pashinyan has determined a specific mission and term for each defense minister. Let’s wait for the developments.

And before that, let’s also remind that when on February 18, 2022 General Araik Harutyunyan released From the post of the Chief of the Main Intelligence Department of the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces to the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, this position was vacant for a long time, that is, there was an acting chief.

And only after about a year, in 2023. on January 24 Samvel Movsisyan was appointed Head of the Main Intelligence Department of the RA Armed Forces General Directorate – Deputy Head of the RA Armed Forces General Directorate.

It should be noted that Samvel Movsisyan in 2020 on November 3 With the mediation of Nikol Pashinyan and the decree of the President of the Republic of Armenia, the deputy head of the main intelligence department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces was appointed., and when the position of the head of the main intelligence department was already vacant, it was Movsisyan who performed the duties of the acting head.

in 2023 we wrote and what personnel changes were made in the fields of military intelligence and operational management after the 2018 “revolution”.

In other words, there is no direction in the armed forces where personnel changes have not occurred several times. And Nikol Pashinyan is very little interested in how long this or that division or department will remain without a leader. This is at best. may one day decide that the given corps, unit or department should be dissolved, made the subject of optimization.

P.S. Later, it became known from our sources that there are candidates for the vacant positions and discussions are underway. And Suren Papikyan, as of now, will most likely continue in office.

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