Should Hayk Sargsyan apologize to Suren Papikyan? Why Papikyan?

A few days ago, with a separate publication, “Political motives of Hayk Sargsyan’s revelations. Why does he not demand the publication of the 44-day report, what was his brother doing during the war days? by article we referred to the accusations against the RA Defense Minister Suren Papikyan.

Ministry of Defense them didn’t leave a comment and considered Hayk Sargsyan’s claims about the number of conscripts and the conditions in the armed forces to be misinformation.

At the same time, the structure led by Papikyan considered it necessary to emphasize that the data on the planning and number of military conscription is among the information subject to encryption, although Sargsyan’s statements were classified as conjecture.

The question is that this is not the first time that the representative of the ruling party has voiced such data, but the defense department has not officially announced their inadmissibility. One of our published in 2023 in the article We even asked the question: “Will RA Defense Minister Suren Papikyan try to counter Hayk Sargsyan’s disclosures, but this time with more effective steps, time will tell?”

Why we emphasized “active” because there were discussions in the Standing Committee on Defense and Security of the National Assembly, Hayk Sargsyan-Suren Papikyan question-and-answer session, when the Minister of Defense offered to talk about some problems within the army behind closed doors: “problems have 2 parts: public and closed, Mr. Kocharyan can initiate a closed discussion, to which I am always ready to come and answer your questions.”

But after this remark of Suren Papikyan, Hayk Sargsyan continued to publish information containing elements of secrecy from the NA podium, publicize issues related to the army subject to closed discussion.

Hayk Sargsyan gave the justification for this the other day. “The idea that the enemy will find out, it collapsed in 2020,” because, according to him, during the entire war, Azerbaijan followed all the movement on the coast, 24/7.

«In other words, he found out where the commander of the defense army is, he shot him, where the deputies are, he shot him. In other words, he not only knew the locations of the commanders, army leadership, and important units by name, but he also made target hits. Both our troop locations, supply routes, positions, etc., have all been considered, are being considered, and will be considered. In other words, the idea that, oh, he is talking about the army, he thinks that our situation will worsen with secrecy… The critical situation has already been badly fixed since 2020, and we also talked about it in the investigative commission of the 44-day war, that the enemy knew full well.” the CP deputy justified his declassifications.

The Ministry of Defense did not address this part of Hayk Sargsyan’s claims, at least regarding the period of Suren Papikyan’s tenure, after all, he claims that even today the locations of our troops, supply routes, and positions are being considered.

But this silence of the Ministry of Defense is perhaps understandable, if we take into account that the places of deployment of the Armenian armed forces, the supply routes are being considered due to the invasion of the sovereign territory of Armenia by Azerbaijan in 2021-2023 and its strengthening there, and it is unlikely that anything positive will change in this regard in the near future.

In addition to this, during these 8 years, Nikol Pashinyan himself has information classified as a state secret made public՝ Before the 44-day war, during it, after it, moreover, in some cases, he personally publicly admitted that he violated the law and disclosed information containing elements of secrecy.

Of course, Suren Papikyan was not spared from this either On March 31, 2022, the military attachés of the EU and NATO member states accredited in RA were escorted to the N airbase of the RA Defense Ministry. And then they published a message and photos attached to it, through which, according to experts, even non-specialists could easily determine the geolocation of the military hangar, and there are not many such hangars in Armenia.

And regarding the fortified regions in February of this year video was be published although “On State Secret” RA: the law specifies that the state secrets include “the allied states in the territory of the Republic of Armenia and About the organizational structure, armament and number of structural divisions of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, the Ministry of Defense” the data:

of course The Minister of Defense tried to convince us that he has received confirmation from the relevant authorities that the conditions in the fortified areas to the extent shown do not pose any threat to us, but we stand by our opinion and in favor of respecting the requirement of the law.

And Hayk Sargsyan’s claims regarding Suren Papikyan and the army today during a briefing with journalists referred to also Nikol Pashinyan.

“I have to record that the Armenian army has never been in such a good condition in terms of food, clothing, weapons, morale, and defense capabilities.: The rest, whoever says it for political reasons, is not important, for me the soldiers, their parents and their parents’ reaction are important. But that does not mean that there are no problems in the army, there is no such army in the world where there is no problem,” he emphasized and reminded about the concept of the transformation of the army, which is allegedly being implemented step by step, although we wrote on one occasion that Pashinyan is also in it. “dangers” saw

“And I don’t see the need to address the rest of the statements, because when I try to get clarifications about them, it turns out that those statements were made and something was misunderstood, then it turned out that something did not happen, or it turned out that what was said was not true. It’s another thing that people who make a statement, and then it turns out that the statement is based on the wrong facts, should have the same political will to stand up and say, folks, the fact I’m talking about turns out not to be so. If so, let’s admit that it is so, if not, let’s admit that it’s not so.” Pashinyan continued the topic.

In other words, Pashinyan is implying that Hayk Sargsyan will either have to prove that he is the right one after the Defense Ministry’s rebuttal, or apologize to Suren Papikyan.

At the time of writing the article, there was no substantive response from the CP deputy. Instead, on his Facebook page, one user left a comment under a post saying: “As soon as they come out of the CP, they start to cry.” to which his brother, Nairi Sargsyan, responded immediately. “Hayk has not left the CP and as I understand, he has no such plans.”

It should be noted that Hayk Sargsyan gave a briefing to journalists a few days ago had said, who considered Pashinyan to be his elder brother, but now their friendship does not continue.

But after leaving him and his brother out of the electoral list, Sargsyan shares the CP’s ideology, for example, that the army should be a backup tool or player in security matters, although in peacetime the army has its clear defense mission.

By the way, Hayk Sargsyan, of course, welcomes the mothers of soldiers who are carrying out action plans these days, who complain that the shortening of the mandatory military service period was not extended to their sons.

At the last action, there were quite a few pro-government citizens, but there were also apolitical ones, and in any case, it is necessary to understand who is behind this, or how the authorities will take advantage of this.

And before that, let’s note that both Suren Papikyan and, even more, Nikol Pashinyan should refer to the data published by Hayk Sargsyan that during the 44-day war, Azerbaijan learned the locations of the army leadership, commanders, and important units and carried out targeted strikes.

Let’s not forget that Hayk Sargsyan is a member of the National Defense and Security Committee, which allowed him to participate in the work of the investigative commission studying the events of the 44-day war.

Shouldn’t we understand how Azerbaijan got to know these data, how much this affected the outcome of the war, Pashinyan does not miss the opportunity to talk about state treason and spies.

In this case, isn’t it beneficial? Let’s say that the arms exhibition to be held on May 28 in the Republic Square, which Pashinyan and the members of his government are talking about wherever they sit, is beneficial and relevant now. In other words, there is a need for a political report that provides votes before the elections. Let us emphasize that the May 28 event in Baku is perceived as a report and a warning that they will never allow the militarization of Armenia.

Summarizing all of this, we must note that any public disagreements, question-and-answer sessions, and expected display of weapons by the members of the ruling party related to the army are purely “pure” political calculations and planned actions, perhaps in some sense even an “internal conflict” brought to light, for which the army is “used”.

The hot election phase is ahead, and in this regard we will see a lot more from the political ruling and non-ruling circles. And we will have occasion to talk about their security programs.

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