Author: Emil Lazarian

Disgust. This is the only feeling that any RA citizen, regardless of political preferences, can have after listening to Nikol Pashinyan’s speech in the European Parliament yesterday.

In that speech, he condensed all his admiration and gratitude towards Azerbaijan, its president, while at the same time combining it with hatred towards everything Armenian.

From the podium of the European Parliament, Nikol Pashinyan voiced the dirtiest narratives of his intra-Armenian propaganda, about the Armenian Apostolic Church, high-ranking clergymen, and all those fighting against his anti-national policy.

Perhaps only due to the lack of confidence in the translation, he did not use the expressions “to dump”, “plaster on the walls”, “to throw something else”, in a substantive sense repeating the same bile with which he has been poisoning the Armenian society for the last two years.

At the same time, from the high European podium, he stated several times in different wordings that Armenia owes its existence today to… Azerbaijan.

The entire causality of Pashinyan’s speech was built on the fetishization of false “peace”, so that if the border delimitation process with Azerbaijan had not started two years ago, Armenia would not exist today and would instead be some territory under foreign rule. The Europeans, of course, applauded Pashinyan, not publicly showing their perception that, having saved Armenia from imaginary “foreign rule”, Pashinyan is no longer secretly handing it over to Azerbaijani-Turkish rule.

The assessment that Nikol Pashinyan has not been able to get rid of the mold of an eccentric oppositionist, even after being in power for 8 years, was once again confirmed yesterday in the hall of the European Parliament with all its misery.

In general, protesting against the political actors of one’s own country, requesting and begging for external support has been characteristic of the oppositions of different times, which, acting in European forums, have tried, often justly, to overcome the seemingly unsolvable problems with domestic instruments. Pashinyan also broke that unwritten law by aligning himself with President Sandu of Moldova and other figures with a similar political pedigree who are ready to do anything for the sake of maintaining power. Everything without exception.

What happened in the hall of the European Parliament, with all its unpleasantness, testifies to a positive reality. According to everything, Pashinyan is seriously aware of the danger of losing power and, fearing its consequences, is begging for help from the Europeans. Pashinyan hinted to Aliyev that if he too supports him in maintaining the power, he can add the phrase “long live the Republic of Azerbaijan” to the list of chants at the end of his speech.

Harutyun Avetisyan

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The International Court of Democracy in Armenia (IODA), which monitors democracy, made preliminary assessments today.

“Armenia. the targeting of political opponents, the abuse of judicial and security structures before the June parliamentary elections, cause concerns,” the international initiative recorded.

168․am–Today, the members of the initiative were interested: yesterday in the European Parliament, Pashinyan accused the church and the clergy of being against peace, as well as being under foreign influence, how do they view these accusations?

In response, Kenneth Roth first expressed his position and specifically noted: “We are not here to stand for or against in these elections. we are not for or against any candidate, nor do we have any position on the political issues facing this country.

We know very well that questions are being raised about what should be Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Russia, Iran, the West, we do not take a position on those issues, and we will not appreciate the church’s comments on this matter, because the church has every right to take a certain position, to be for or against the actions of the government. that is his right, that is what democracy is about.

We are here to say that the fact that the church has a different position from the prime minister does not give the prime minister the right to start taking revenge, does not give the right to start interfering with the independence of this important structure and clergy.”

Sarah Whiston added: “We have not heard any evidence of foreign political control over the church, political parties, etc. We know about the government’s accusations, which were presented to the Investigative Committee, that there are external forces that are putting pressure on Diaspora Armenians to supposedly come to Armenia and vote. But even if it were, it would not necessarily be a crime. Armenians have the right to come to Armenia and vote.”

Details in the video

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While US President Donald Trump, after a telephone conversation with the President of Russia at the initiative of the US, announces the end of the war with Iran soon, and the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsett declares that the US will end the war with Iran “according to its schedule”, international press releases and statements from Iran show that Iran is not going to back down and is toughening its rhetoric.

First of all, let’s remind that on March 10 US President announced that the war was “almost completely over”. Trump also noted that “we have already won in many ways, but we have not won enough”.

Unlike Trump, Hegsett said that the US would not withdraw from the war with Iran until “the enemy is completely and decisively defeated”.

“As President Trump announced yesterday, we are defeating the enemy by demonstrating technical skills and military power,” Hegsett said. According to him, Iran’s leaders are “desperate and in a hurry” because the war has been going on for the second week. Meanwhile, the United States intends to attack Iran’s missile potential, navy and military industrial bases.

On March 9, at the initiative of the American side, US President Trump had a telephone conversation with Russian President Putin. Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the Russian president, informed that Trump called Putin to discuss “a number of extremely important topics related to the current developments of the international situation.”

The main topics of the conversation were the conflict with Iran and the tripartite negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement with the participation of US representatives.

Ushakov said that Putin expressed a number of considerations aimed at the speedy political-diplomatic settlement of the Iranian conflict, including taking into account the contacts he had with the leaders of the Persian Gulf countries, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and leaders of a number of other countries.

According to him, Trump gave his assessment of the development of the situation in the context of the ongoing American-Israeli operation. “I would like to note that there was quite a substantive and, I think, not useless exchange of ideas on this issue,” said the president’s assistant.

Parallel to all this, Lebanese «Al Mayadeen» The TV channel, referring to its sources, wrote that Iran does not accept the mediation initiatives regarding the ceasefire and puts forward its own conditions for starting negotiations with the USA. “Iran rejects all mediation initiatives regarding the cease-fire, because it has conditions and wants to receive real guarantees,” the message states.

According to the TV channel, the leadership of the Islamic Republic rejects the current proposals of the mediators, as it considers them insufficient and insists on clearer obligations. In particular, Tehran demands from the US.

• Guarantees of non-aggression in the future,
• Compensation payment,
• An agreement that Iran will be able to implement a complete nuclear fuel cycle at its nuclear power facilities.

Bloomberg the agency also writes that the US armed forces faced serious difficulties in the confrontation with Iran due to the large arsenal of missiles and drones of the Islamic Republic. According to the newspaper, almost two weeks after the start of the conflict, the US military is forced to actively spend expensive interceptor missiles to repel Iranian attacks, and despite the Pentagon’s statements that the number of strikes has been reduced by about 80 percent, Tehran continues to launch daily attacks on military facilities and energy infrastructure in the Middle East.

Bloomberg notes that Iran has accumulated stocks of missiles and drones for years, deploying them in different regions of the country. Ballistic missiles are able to overcome the air defense systems of US allies, and cheap Shahed type drones force the use of expensive air defense systems. According to the publication, some Iranian systems prevent the US from establishing full control over Iran’s airspace.

“Unable to achieve absolute superiority in the air, the American military is using long-range missiles more actively. According to Bloomberg, several hundred Tomahawk missiles were used during the first hundred hours of combat operations.

The agency points out that the production of such weapons is limited. According to former Pentagon employee Elaine McCusker, less than a hundred Tomahawk missiles are released annually, so it may take years to replenish the stockpile. Earlier The New York Timesalso wrote that the use of cheap drones by Iran leads to the rapid consumption of expensive missiles of the USA and its allies.

According to the periodicals, one Shahed-136 drone can cost 20-50 thousand dollars, while one missile of the Patriot complex costs more than 3 million dollars. US officials estimate US costs in the first week of hostilities at about $6 billion. US Central Command (CENTCOM) according to data, during the first five days of the conflict, Iran launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2 thousand drones.

“168 Hours” in a conversation with Iranian analyst Khayal Muazzin expressed confidence that Iran is in control of the situation and is definitely not losing, if not the opposite, because, he said, the US is looking for ways to stop the war and save face.

According to him, this is shown by US diplomatic moves and contradictory statements. He believes that in Iran they are ready for any scenario, they have been preparing for war for a long time, so the war will most likely stop if Iran’s conditions are accepted.

“This is an extraordinary situation. Already for the second time, and this time also during very effective negotiations, they are attacking Iran, trying to surprise and defeat it.

The war was started by the US, but the situation is dictated by Iran, and the outcome depends on which side will be able to withstand how much and how. Iran is determined to respond to attacks by its adversaries, and is also determined to act clearly, targeting only the aggressors: Israel and American bases in the region, which embody the American presence in the Middle East region.

In addition, Iran stated that if there is an attack, Iran will perceive it as a full-scale war, and it has done so,” said Khayal Muazin. However, according to his observation, the general information background allows to claim that the West wants to stop all this.

“However, in Iran they understand that the issue should be thoroughly resolved,” said Khayal Muazin.

As for the South Caucasus region, in his opinion, the current course of the war stems from the interests of the region and Iran.

According to him, if problems arise with Iran, the first consequences will most likely be felt by Armenia, which has Iran’s support in all matters.

“It is obvious that if Iran weakens, Armenia will not benefit from it, other forces will benefit from it, which is not in Armenia’s interests. Therefore, Iran should continue its clear policy for its own sake and regional stability,” Khayal Muazzin said.

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“LUYS” Foundation analyzed the 2025 vision of Yerevan city. budget execution report.

Thus.

• The actual size of the total revenues of the budget, 148.5 billion drams, is 27.2% higher than last year’s figure, but is 6.8% less than the figure planned by the approved budget. The increase was provided by “taxes and duties” and “other revenues”.

Several legislative changes, not pleasing to the public, contributed significantly to the collection of Yerevan city budget revenues.

In particular, the increase in taxes and fees is mainly due to the increase of the property tax base by 50% compared to the previous year, the real estate tax payments calculated as a result of considering multi-apartment buildings and other buildings without a certificate of completion as a single completed building in 2025, real estate tax payments for new property units generated during the year, as well as the increase in construction fees due to the increase in the volume of construction works.

The increase in other property taxes is due to the increase in the number of vehicles. And in other revenues, the increase in actual revenues for local fees, which constitute the main part of administrative charges, was mainly provided at the expense of changing the methodology of calculating garbage collection fees for residential buildings.

The fees charged for parking in the parking lot, on the contrary, decreased by 8.4% compared to 2024. Although parking fees have increased from 2 to 13.3 times since January 1, 2024, the actual collections in 2025 are only 62.7% more than the 2023 figure.

Bearing in mind that no tangible off-street parking load shedding was recorded during the mentioned period, it is hard to believe that the main reason for such a relatively “modest” increase in the collection of parking fees is a reduction in the number of parked cars.

• 2025 of the city of Yerevan the budget expenditures, 140.8 billion drams, were underachieved in relation to both the approved and specified plan. Underperformance refers to both current and capital costs. In percentage terms, the shortfall in capital expenditure is more than 4.5 times higher than the shortfall in current expenditure.

  Among the expenses, special attention is paid to the expenses incurred for the purpose of rewards, monetary incentives and special payments, which increased more than tenfold during the last three years and amounted to 2.8 billion drams in 2025. Moreover, their actual size in the reporting year exceeded the figure planned by the approved budget by 3.4 times.

  According to the operational classification, there is an underperformance in relation to the specified plan for all expenditure directions. The recorded significant shortcomings prove once again that budget planning remains one of the weakest aspects of the city authorities.

• Not even half of the budgeted expenditures approved for many of the vitally important projects have been implemented. Among such programs, we can single out “Rehabilitation and maintenance of bridge structures”, “Reconstruction and overhaul of highways and streets”, “Modernization of transport system”, “Yerevan city lighting program”, three programs aimed at increasing Yerevan’s energy efficiency, etc. The picture of some programs with a large public resonance is very worrying. It is noteworthy that.

  The 9.6 billion drams allocated by the 2025 budget for the construction of the “Ajapnyak” station within the framework of the “Yerevan metro infrastructure construction” project was reduced more than 7 times according to the specified plan, but even in this case, the performance was only 56.2%. Moreover, the actual expenses of 0.8 billion drams refer only to the payment for the design and estimate documents, which was still provided for in the 2024 budget.

  Although the 3.0 billion drams provided in the approved plan for the implementation of the project “Construction and overhaul of pre-school educational institutions implemented with state support (delegated powers)” was reduced four times by the revised plan, however, even that reduced plan was underachieved, when one of the most important targets of the current government’s activity plan is the construction and overhaul of 300 schools and 500 kindergartens.

• In 2025, the budget of the city of Yerevan had an actual surplus of 7.7 billion drams, against the deficit of 8.7 billion drams planned in the revised plan. In addition, the budget deficit was increased 100-fold by the revised plan compared to the amount planned by the approved plan, but instead of the deficit, a surplus was recorded that was roughly comparable to it.

Although at the beginning of the report, an attempt was made to give the best possible explanation for the low performance of the budget: “the deviations of the planned and actual spent amounts are mainly due to the savings generated in the procurement process and the transfer of contractual obligations”, but in the text of the same report, it is further stated that “the deviations of the planned and actual indicators are mainly due to the complete or partial non-implementation of the programs implemented within the powers delegated to the Mayor of Yerevan”.

The latter speaks about the insufficient level of management of the city government.

The full analysis is available with the following link.

 “LUYS” Foundation

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