Today is Good Friday, which marks the sixth day of creation, when God created Adam from dust in His own image and likeness, and then created Eve from his side and placed them in Paradise. On Friday, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, stripped themselves of glory, and the Lord punished man with a curse and expelled him from paradise. In the sixth period, God S. In the immaculate womb of a virgin, he became a perfect Man, in soul, mind and body, to perform the tasks of administration.

On Good Friday, the Lord was arrested by the betrayal of Judas, beaten and mocked, and then, taking upon Himself the curse and condemnation of Adam, dying on the cross, He opened His side, and washed away the sins of man with the water from His side, and with His blood, He redeemed us from the service of evil (Matt. 26:47-27:56). And as his wife, Eve, was created from Adam’s side, so His bride, the Church, was created from the Lord’s side. Although today is joy for the souls, because by Christ’s sufferings our souls were freed from hell, but physically there is mourning and sadness.

Good Friday is the commemoration day of Jesus Christ’s suffering, crucifixion, death and burial. On that day, the Order of the Crucifixion takes place. After the evening service, during the pre-holiday ceremony, the burial ceremony is performed, when the symbolic tomb of Jesus Christ, made of flowers and tree branches, is circled around the church in front of the faithful people.

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Armenia currently has a public debt of more than 14 billion dollars. Since 2018, when Nikol Pashinyan assumed the post of Prime Minister and formed a government, the national debt has doubled, writes “Hetk”.

State debt is one of the constant topics of the government-opposition debate.

Since the expenses of the state budget are more than the revenues, that is, the taxes collected from citizens and businesses, the state borrows money to be able to fully meet the expenses of the given year.

In this way, the national debt of Armenia has been accumulating and getting heavier for years.

The debt has increased not only under this, but also under the previous authorities. During economic shocks, Armenia relied more on debt. This happened in 2020 as well, when the economy collapsed under the conditions of the pandemic and the Artsakh war, and little money came into the budget.

“Okay, we didn’t want to say it, let’s say it. We took weapons. We raised weapons. We bought weapons out of debt, because we needed them a lot and at once. … Let’s go and demonstrate,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced in the National Assembly on November 13, 2025, responding to questions about why the state debt has increased.

According to him, it was also affected by the epidemic of 2020. “Don’t you know that there was Covid? We took a loan so that the country can overcome Kovid during the war.”

However, the debt increased not only during the war and pandemic, but also in the following years. Even in 2022 and the following years, when Armenia became a transit country for the trade of the West and Russia and recorded high economic growth, it received and sent away thousands of refugees from the Russian Federation.

“The general logic is this: we borrow in order to invest in our future development, so that in the future we can increase our incomes faster than the expenses related to the debt, than the debt itself,” RA Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan said in a conversation with “Hetk”.

Has Armenia diverted its debt to weapons and overcoming covid, has the debt burden decreased, as the authorities declare?

There are different numbers and different interpretations on both sides of the medal

The national debt of Armenia is the sum of internal and external debts.

As of the end of January of this year, almost half of Armenia’s total debt is foreign debt: 7.2 billion dollars, of which 6.7 billion dollars is the government’s debt, and the rest belongs to the Central Bank of Armenia.

The external debt of the government is largely the loans that Armenia takes from international organizations and various countries, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, France, Russia, etc.

And the domestic debt is currently 7.4 billion dollars or 2.8 trillion drams. The state owes that amount to citizens and legal entities. They bought government bonds, that is, they lent money to the state with the condition of getting them back with additional interest after some time.

It is important to note that a small part of the state debt is the debt of the Central Bank, the rest is the debt of the Government. The Ministry of Finance decided to separate the debt of the Central Bank and not include it in the state debt, presenting it as an internationally accepted standard. And in fact, by calculating in this way, the size of the state debt decreases.

But since the debt of the Central Bank was always calculated in the state debt, it is also included in the graph we presented. Even if it is not included, the growth of the debt is not mitigated.

Domestic debt has been growing much faster in recent years. The state has decided that it is safer this way. it is issued and redeemed in Armenian drams and is free from the risk of foreign exchange fluctuations.

Since 2018, the domestic debt has increased by 6 billion dollars, the external debt by 1.5 billion dollars.

Manipulation with incomplete information. the debt burden has not decreased

The authorities are trying to dispel people’s worries about the state debt.

Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan even uses incomplete information for this purpose.

“Recently, I have been receiving a lot of letters from you, comments on social media pages, and worries about what we will do, how did it happen that the foreign debt of the Republic of Armenia became 12 billion dollars? The foreign debt of the Republic of Armenia is not 12 billion dollars. The foreign debt is 5 billion 962 million dollars. And those people who spread the number of 12 billion are either not informed, or they do it on purpose, they manipulate it,” after Papoyan’s statement in February 2025, the professional community and the media quickly reacted.

Talking only about the external debt, without even mentioning the internal debt, Papoyan is actually misleading himself.

Meanwhile, as we have seen, domestic debt is not only inferior to foreign debt, but its servicing is more expensive. In other words, the interest rates are higher.

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Austria has closed its airspace for American military planes. Vienna officials explain this step as a constitutional violation against the background of the escalation of the war in Iran, the Austrian newspaper Heute reports.

According to Austrian Defense Ministry spokesman Michael Bauer, the country will not make any exceptions for the Pentagon, and the decision to ban US military aircraft from flying over Austria is final. The official noted that since the beginning of military operations, the Ministry of Defense has rejected all US flight requests.

The Ministry of Defense does not disclose the exact number of blocked flights. However, each request is investigated in detail. Bauer emphasized that the country’s position remains principled.

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A large number of parents of servicemen undergoing mandatory military service gathered today, April 3, near the building of the RA Ministry of Defense. They demand that the provision of 1.5 years of military service should be extended to their sons serving in the army.

It should be reminded that with the adopted legislative amendments, the mandatory military service period has been reduced from 24 months to 18 months, starting from the winter draft of 2025, but these changes do not apply to servicemen who are already in service.

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Relatives and representatives of Armenian prisoners held illegally in Azerbaijan have written to RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Confederation Ignazio Cassis, as well as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Miryana Spoliarich Eger, with a request to launch the mechanism of “Patronizing Power” within the framework of international humanitarian law. This was reported by the Center for International and Comparative Law, whose head is Siranush Sahakyan, representative of the interests of Armenian prisoners at the ECHR.

“We, the relatives and representatives of Armenian prisoners held illegally in Azerbaijan, express our deep concern regarding the complete closure of the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Azerbaijan. This has significantly worsened the already dire situation of our relatives, leaving us in deep uncertainty about their fate and whereabouts.

Taking into account the above and recalling the obligations defined in the framework of international humanitarian law, we, with all respect, but also firmly call on Armenia to officially appeal to the government of the Swiss Confederation, so that the Swiss side assumes the role of “Patron Power”. This is a necessary and urgent step to ensure the protection of the rights, safety and dignity of our relatives through internationally recognized mechanisms.

We realize that the institution of “Patronizing Power” has not been used in recent decades and may seem unusual in today’s context, but the exceptional and illegal circumstances we are dealing with require just such exceptional measures. “Azerbaijan continues to keep Armenian prisoners isolated from their families, independent lawyers and impartial humanitarian organizations, which is a gross violation of international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions of 1949,” the letter states.

Noting that at least 19 people are currently being held in Baku, their relatives report that this situation has led to a serious vacuum in the protection of rights, creating high risks of violence, ill-treatment and even enforced disappearance.

“Given these urgent and extraordinary circumstances, as well as Switzerland’s status as the host state of the ICRC and a major supporter of international humanitarian law, we respectfully request:

The Government of the Republic of Armenia to officially appeal to the Government of the Swiss Confederation to assume the role of “Patronizing Power” in relation to all Armenian prisoners held by Azerbaijan.

To the Government of the Swiss Confederation to grant Armenia’s request and act as a “Protecting Power”, protecting the rights and dignity of prisoners as much as possible.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, as a substitute for the “Patron Power”, to support this appointment and assist Switzerland in the performance of its functions.

Time is of crucial importance. Continued delay may exacerbate the suffering of illegally detained persons and increase threats to their lives and physical integrity. Therefore, we call on the governments of the Republic of Armenia and Switzerland to take appropriate steps within the scope of their mandate, and to do it at the right time. In addition, we ask the International Committee of the Red Cross to support it in order to ensure the effective application of international law and the proper protection of the rights of ethnic Armenians in the conditions of ongoing violations,” the letter states.

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