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ANI: The One Thousand and One Afterlives of Medieval Armenian Capital
CC: The Perils and Possibilities of the Diaspora’s New Capital
B
y Levon Baronian
Oragark
For more than a century, when Armenians spoke of the Diaspora, they usually imagined a map whose principal centers lay in the eastern Mediterranean: Beirut, Aleppo, Tehran, Cairo, Jerusalem, Istanbul. Those communities were not merely concentrations of people. They were civilizational outposts. They sustained Armenian schools, presses, churches, parties, beneficent unions, youth organizations and communal patterns of life in which Armenian identity was not an occasional performance, but a living social environment. That world, though diminished, still exists. But it no longer constitutes the demographic center of gravity of Armenian life outside the Republic of Armenia. In the twenty-first century, that center has moved decisively westward, and above all to Los Angeles. Scholarly work has explicitly described Los Angeles as the capital or informal “second capital” of the contemporary Armenian immigrant community, while studies of Glendale and the surrounding region underscore Southern California’s singular importance in the modern Armenian Diaspora.
That fact carries profound implications. Los Angeles is not simply a city with many Armenians. It is a representation of the real, new Diaspora: a Diaspora increasingly shaped not by the old post-Genocide centers of Lebanon, Syria and Iran, but by migrants from the Republic of Armenia and the broader post-Soviet Armenian world. Research on Armenian Los Angeles notes that the major immigration waves after the 1965 reforms, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, transformed the social composition of Armenian America. Glendale in particular has come to embody this shift: an Armenian hub where older Diasporan streams and Armenia-born immigrants meet, overlap and reshape one another.
This demographic transformation is not a footnote. It is the central fact of Diasporan Armenian life in our time. Yet much of our institutional thinking still operates as though the paradigmatic Diasporan Armenian remains the child of Beirut, Aleppo, Anjar or Tehran. The result is a dangerous mismatch between reality and leadership. We often speak in the language of an old Diaspora while inhabiting the sociology of a new one.
The westward movement of the Diaspora is not merely geographic
For decades, the Armenian national body has been living through a westward displacement of its demographic fulcrum. This is usually described in practical terms: where Armenians find security, employment, education and stability. But the phenomenon must also be understood politically and civilizationally. Every major westward shift has moved large segments of our people farther from the Armenian homeland, farther from the daily urgency of Armenian statehood, and farther from the instinctive national reflexes that arise when a people remains regionally anchored.
The old Middle Eastern Diaspora, for all its hardships, existed in a geography emotionally and historically proximate to the homeland. Beirut was not Yerevan, but neither was it civilizationally alien to Armenian memory. Aleppo was not Echmiadzin, but it belonged to a Near Eastern world in which Armenian Christianity, Armenian communal structures and Armenian historical consciousness were legible realities. Even where Armenians were minorities, they were minorities in societies that understood durable communal difference.
The United States, by contrast, offers freedom and prosperity but also an environment of immense absorptive power. It is not merely that America is far away. It is that America is a machine for dissolving old solidarities into private success, symbolic ethnicity and eventually memory without structure.
This is why the westward movement of the Diaspora should be seen not only as a sociological process but as a national risk. A nation whose extraterritorial population becomes more numerous, more prosperous and more institutionally influential while also becoming more distant from its homeland faces a strategic contradiction: it gains resources but risks losing cohesion; it gains comfort but risks losing seriousness; it gains visibility but risks losing continuity.
The Diaspora cannot be understood as permanent
At this point, a more fundamental question must be asked: what is the Diaspora for?
Too often, Armenians speak of the Diaspora as though it were a permanent national arrangement, as though dispersion itself were a stable civilizational destiny. That is a profound error. The Diaspora is not a homeland. It is not a replacement for the homeland. It is not even, in the deepest sense, a normal condition for a healthy nation. It is an emergency historical condition—a condition born of dispossession, massacre, exile, state loss and repeated waves of forced or semi-forced migration.
A Diaspora may survive for generations, but it cannot be accepted as a permanent strategic horizon. Left to itself, it withers. Its outer shells may remain impressive—churches, organizations, banquets, schools, commemorations, respectable donors, proud rhetoric—but its internal vitality gradually drains away. Language erodes. Marriage patterns loosen. Memory becomes ceremonial. Institutions become custodial rather than generative. The people remain ethnically named, but less and less nationally formed.
The Diaspora, therefore, must be viewed as temporary national scaffolding. It is like a branch or seed of a tree placed in foreign soil in order to keep it alive until it can be rooted again in its own ground. It may survive for a time elsewhere. It may even grow leaves. But if the branch forgets the tree, or if the seed begins to imagine the pot as its permanent earth, decline becomes only a matter of time.
That is why the central orienting principle of Diasporan Armenian life must be back to Armenia.
This does not mean that every Armenian must immediately sell his home, pack a suitcase and move to Armenia tomorrow morning. Such slogans are unserious. But it does mean that every Diasporan institution, every Armenian school, every church, every political organization, every media platform and every family should be cultivating a steady, incremental, structured deepening of ties to Armenia.
The Armenian who has never visited Armenia should visit Armenia. The Armenian who visits only occasionally should visit more often. The Armenian who visits often should establish personal, professional, educational or economic ties. The Armenian who already has such ties should deepen them. The Armenian family that sends its child to Armenian school but has no lived relationship with the Republic should begin building one. The businessman should invest. The student should study there for a period. The professional should build networks. The family should create routines of travel, property, philanthropy, partnership or service.
In short, Diasporan Armenians must not merely “care about” Armenia in the abstract. They must progressively bind their lives to it.
If the Diaspora has no strategic arc toward Armenia, then it is not preserving the nation—it is merely prolonging dispersion.
Los Angeles is the new center because it has inherited both strength and fragility
Los Angeles has become the new capital of the Armenian Diaspora precisely because it combines several features no other center now possesses at comparable scale. It has numbers. It has density. It has institutional legacy. It has new immigration. It has wealth. It has media. It has educational and organizational infrastructure. And, crucially, it has become a meeting ground between old Diasporan Armenians and immigrants from Armenia itself. Glendale has been described in scholarship as an ethnoburb with substantial Armenian demographic and civic presence, and one study notes that Armenian Americans make up a very large share of Glendale’s population.
But Los Angeles also embodies the fragility of the new Diaspora. It is the place where Armenian life is most visible, yet also the place where its long-term survival will be most severely tested. We should not mistake numerical mass for national durability. A community can grow in size while shrinking in depth. It can accumulate businesses, churches, schools and nonprofit entities while still failing in intergenerational transmission. It can become loud without becoming rooted.
This is the paradox of Armenian Los Angeles: it is powerful enough to lead the Diaspora, yet not disciplined enough to do so automatically.
The American setting is more dangerous for assimilation than many Armenians admit
There remains a sentimental tendency among some Armenians to think that because the United States permits open ethnic association, Armenian continuity here is secure. That confidence is unwarranted. In reality, the American environment is more dangerous for assimilation than the environments our communities historically faced in Lebanon, Syria or Iran.
Why? Because assimilation is not only a question of tolerance or oppression. It is a question of whether a host society leaves room for thick communal continuity. In Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Armenians often lived as clearly bounded communities with their own schools, churches, parties, endowments, marriage circles and dense forms of daily collective life. Religious difference, linguistic difference and communal boundaries helped slow down dissolution. Those societies did not necessarily make life easy, but they often made full absorption difficult. Difference itself could function as a bulwark.
America works differently. It celebrates ethnicity rhetorically while dissolving it structurally. The “melting pot” does not usually demand immediate surrender; rather, it rewards gradual dilution. The first generation works. The second generation translates. The third generation remembers selectively. The fourth generation often inherits cuisine, surnames and nostalgia, but not language, institutional loyalty or civilizational discipline.
The historical record of major European-origin groups in the United States is instructive. Census data show that in 2022 about 41.1 million Americans reported German ancestry, 30.7 million Irish ancestry and 16 million Italian ancestry. Yet the broader language data tell the deeper story: English overwhelmingly dominates life in the United States, and Census reporting shows that most Americans speak only English at home. That is precisely how assimilation works in America. Ancestry survives long after thick ethnicity, communal separateness and inherited language have largely dissolved.
That is the real warning for Armenians in America. The danger is not that our children will hate being Armenian. The danger is that they will regard Armenianness as one optional adjective among many: emotionally pleasant, occasionally performative, but socially nonbinding. That form of assimilation is more lethal than open hostility, because it feels harmless while it empties a people of substance.
The Armenian problem in Los Angeles is not lack of culture, but lack of cohesion and national direction
It would be incorrect to say that the Armenian challenge in Los Angeles is a lack of cultural activity. Quite the opposite. There is no shortage of Armenian “culture” in Southern California. There are dozens, indeed hundreds, of institutions, programs and initiatives devoted to some aspect of Armenian communal life: dance groups, choirs, language classes, Saturday schools, athletic programs, church activities, scouts, student associations, cultural centers, commemorative events, media platforms and artistic programs. Armenian culture, in the narrow sense of visible and organized cultural _expression_, is not absent.
But culture by itself is not enough.
A nation does not endure merely because it produces dance performances, language classes and commemorative gatherings. It endures when those activities are woven into a larger national framework—when they form not a scattered collection of well-meaning efforts, but a coherent system of transmission, discipline and mobilization. That is where Armenian Los Angeles remains deficient.
The problem is not that Armenians in Los Angeles have failed to preserve cultural forms. The problem is that these forms too often exist in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner, detached from a unifying national agenda and narrative. One institution teaches Armenian language. Another teaches dance. Another organizes youth sports. Another hosts lectures. Another raises funds. Another conducts church life. Yet too often these efforts do not converge into a single civilizational project. They coexist, but they do not always function as parts of a single national organism.
As a result, the community often generates activity without generating sufficient national coherence. It produces participation without necessarily producing formation. It produces events without always producing direction. It preserves symbols without reliably transmitting a disciplined understanding of what Armenian life is for, where it must lead, and what obligations it imposes.
That is why even a large, active and visibly cultural Armenian population can remain strategically weak. A people may have abundant institutions and yet still lack the internal coordination necessary to turn numbers into organized power. It may have many cultural expressions and yet fail to produce a common national narrative strong enough to shape the next generation. In such a setting, “culture” risks becoming a collection of separate performances rather than a unified mechanism of national continuity.
Los Angeles does not suffer from a shortage of Armenian cultural life. It suffers from the absence of sufficient cohesion among the forces that sustain that life, and from the lack of a clear, organizing national purpose capable of binding them together. The real challenge is therefore not simply to preserve Armenian culture, but to bring Armenian institutions, programs and energies into a common Armenia-centered national framework. Only then can culture become not merely an _expression_ of identity, but an instrument of continuity.
The debate over Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian is being mishandled
One of the most self-defeating habits in present Armenian discourse is the way language is too often framed as an arena of factional preservation rather than national consolidation. Concern over Western Armenian’s decline is real and understandable. But from that correct concern, some circles draw the wrong strategic conclusion. They behave as though the central linguistic question before the Diaspora is the preservation of Western Armenian as distinct from Armenian as a whole.
That approach may arise from understandable historical sentiment, but under present demographic conditions it is strategically misguided.
The first obligation of a threatened nation is to keep its children Armenian, not to turn dialectal differentiation into a battlefield of prestige. In Los Angeles especially, where the community has been transformed by immigrants from the Republic of Armenia and the post-Soviet Armenian world, any posture that implicitly treats Eastern Armenian as secondary or less authentically national is not merely parochial; it is nationally dangerous. It alienates those very Armenians whose arrival has made Los Angeles the demographic center of Diasporan life. It trains children to associate Armenian language with internal dispute. And it mistakes a part for the whole.
More than that, once the question is placed in the broader strategic framework of return and reconnection to Armenia, the current way the issue is often framed becomes even more indefensible. If the national future requires progressively strengthening the relationship between Diasporan Armenians and the Republic of Armenia, then it follows that the common linguistic bridge to Armenia must be strengthened, not weakened.
That means something simple but politically uncomfortable: our children should be taught standardized Eastern Armenian, as spoken and written in the Republic of Armenia, first. First not because Western Armenian has no value, and not because its literary and historical inheritance is unimportant, but because the primary national need is to ensure that future Diasporan Armenians can function linguistically in direct relation to the Armenian state, Armenian society, Armenian institutions and Armenian reality as it actually exists.
Only after that foundation is laid should the preservation of Western Armenian be pursued as a secondary and enriching task.
That is the rational national sequence: Armenian first, Armenia-connected Armenian first, then dialectal preservation. Reversing that order in present conditions is strategically absurd. The tragedy of our moment is that many Armenian children in Los Angeles are moving rapidly toward English dominance while adults debate which Armenian they should feel guilty about not speaking.
The real task is broader: produce Armenian-speaking children, Armenian-literate homes, Armenian-capable institutions and an Armenian public culture in which both major modern standards of the language are treated as national assets, but where the language of actual state continuity—standardized Eastern Armenian—holds priority because it is the living linguistic bridge to the Republic. A nation on the edge of language erosion cannot afford luxury quarrels.
The older Diaspora model cannot simply be imported, but neither can it be discarded
Some will argue that the old Middle Eastern Diaspora cannot be our model because its social conditions no longer exist. That is partly true. Los Angeles is not Beirut. American suburbia is not Bourj Hammoud. The state, class structure, urban geography and cultural pressures are all different.
Yet it would be foolish to discard the central lesson of the old Diaspora: Armenian life survives where institutions are thick enough to organize everyday existence. The success of historical Diasporan communities did not come from rhetoric alone. It came from schools that formed children daily, churches that were not merely ceremonial, newspapers that shaped opinion, political organizations that demanded discipline and neighborhoods in which being Armenian was not an extracurricular identity.
Los Angeles has many Armenian institutions, but too many of them still operate at a scale and mentality suited to an older, smaller community. The city and its surrounding Armenian population have grown dramatically, but the organizational imagination of the community has not kept pace. We have more Armenians than before, yet not proportionally more schools, not proportionally stronger youth pipelines, not proportionally greater Armenian-language competence, not proportionally stronger media and not proportionally more serious civic coordination. In many cases, we have inherited organizations but not expanded them to match the demographic reality before us.
That is one of the most under-discussed failures of Armenian Los Angeles: growth without corresponding institutional modernization.
Our institutions have stagnated while the population has expanded
If Los Angeles is indeed the capital of the Armenian Diaspora, then one must ask a sobering question: why does the infrastructure of that capital so often appear underscaled? Why do so many organizations still behave like custodians of legacy constituencies rather than architects of a mass national community? Why is there still so much duplication, so much complacency, so little coordination and so little data-driven planning?
This is not merely a managerial criticism. It is a civilizational one. Institutions are how a people converts population into power. If our schools cannot absorb enough children, if our churches do not command enough lived loyalty, if our organizations cannot integrate Armenia-born newcomers into common structures, if our media cannot shape a unified public conversation, if our youth institutions do not scale with urgency, then Los Angeles will remain a symbolic capital rather than an effective one.
A true capital does not merely host a population. It organizes it.
And here another problem emerges: many Armenian institutions in Los Angeles still imagine their role primarily as preserving inherited sub-communities rather than forging a new Diasporan synthesis. But the new Armenian Los Angeles cannot be built as a museum of separate memories. It must become a political, linguistic, educational and cultural framework capacious enough to integrate descendants of genocide survivors from the old Diaspora, immigrants from Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia, newcomers from Russia and Ukraine, Armenian-speaking professionals, working-class families, mixed-background households and increasingly American-born youth. The old institutions often know how to preserve circles; they have been less successful at organizing a total community.
If Los Angeles is the capital, its institutions must become Armenia-centric
Once one accepts that the Diaspora is not an end in itself, but a temporary national condition whose legitimacy rests on strengthening Armenia, a further conclusion follows. Diasporan institutions should no longer define success merely by local attendance, fundraising totals, banquet culture or symbolic ethnic preservation. They should be judged by the extent to which they increase the real, lived, cumulative connection of Armenians to Armenia.
This means Armenia-centric programming must cease to be peripheral and become central.
Armenian schools should not merely “teach about Armenia”; they should produce graduates who can function in Armenian, travel in Armenia, study there, work there and imagine a serious future relationship with the Republic. Churches should not speak of Armenia only in moments of catastrophe, but as an ongoing axis of communal life. Youth organizations should build repeated, structured and escalating Armenia engagement, not one-off sentimental trips. Professional networks should create pathways for internships, business formation, investment, consulting, relocation options and long-term partnerships. Media should normalize Armenia-oriented life choices rather than treat them as exceptional.
The institutional question is no longer whether Diasporan Armenians love Armenia. Most do, at least emotionally. The question is whether our institutions are converting that emotion into structure.
Too often, they are not.
The current regime in Armenia is widening the rupture, not healing it
This institutional failure becomes even more dangerous in light of the ideology now being advanced by Nikol Pashinyan’s government. Pashinyan has publicly promoted what he calls the doctrine of “Real Armenia,” including in official remarks in late 2025 and again in public messaging in 2026. Official coverage presents this doctrine as rooted in history and centered on the present Republic and its current state framework. Whatever one calls it, the effect has been to narrow the national imagination and to deepen, in the eyes of many Armenians, the conceptual separation between the Republic and the Diaspora.
His defenders present this as realism. But whatever label is applied, the political outcome is the same: Diasporan Armenian attachments, historical claims and national instincts are increasingly treated not as strategic assets to be integrated, but as energies to be managed, domesticated or sidelined. A government that teaches Armenians to shrink their national horizon to a regime-approved formula does not heal dispersion; it normalizes it.
That is why Diasporan institutions must not respond to this ideological drift by becoming quieter, more cautious or more detached. They must do the opposite. If the current government in Armenia advances frameworks that separate the Republic from the Diaspora, then Diasporan institutions have an even greater duty to counter with amplified Armenia-centric programs, deeper people-to-people integration, stronger educational ties, greater student exchanges, more investment, more visits, more partnerships, more Armenian-language competence and more insistence on one indivisible Armenian national body.
The answer to a regime-centered narrowing of the national idea must be a broader, deeper and more unapologetic Armenia-centeredness from below.
Los Angeles has the capacity to become more than a refuge
There is another mistake Armenians sometimes make when speaking about Los Angeles: we describe it as though its significance were merely demographic. But a community of this size, density and visibility can do much more than preserve remnants. It can produce power.
Los Angeles can shape Armenian media narratives globally. It can influence philanthropic priorities. It can produce scholarship, literature, entertainment and policy networks. It can train clergy, teachers, organizers and intellectuals. It can anchor durable Armenia-Diaspora exchange. It can help define the terms on which the Diaspora relates to the Republic of Armenia. It can also serve as the principal site where a unified modern Armenian identity is renegotiated under new historical conditions.
But none of that happens automatically. Armenians in Los Angeles must stop thinking of themselves merely as a successful immigrant cluster and start thinking of themselves as bearers of national responsibility. That means acting less like a prosperous ethnicity and more like a dispersed nation.
A prosperous ethnicity asks how to preserve customs.
A dispersed nation asks how to secure continuity, sovereignty and organized collective life across generations.
The difference is everything.
The relationship with the Republic of Armenia must be re-centered
Because Los Angeles now reflects the new Diaspora, it must also rethink its relationship with the Republic of Armenia. The old Diaspora often understood itself as guardian, benefactor and moral witness. Those roles still matter. But the demographic rise of Armenia-born Armenians in Los Angeles changes the equation. The Diaspora is no longer dealing only with a distant homeland populated by others. More and more, the homeland has arrived inside the Diaspora itself.
This is one reason the internal opposition between “Diasporan Armenian” and “Hayastantsi” has become so destructive. It is an outdated distinction masquerading as cultural sophistication. In demographic, political and civilizational terms, the future Armenian Diaspora cannot survive if it treats Armenians from the Republic as culturally useful but institutionally secondary. Nor can it survive if Armenia-born Armenians remain detached from Diasporan institutions. Los Angeles must become the place where these two historical streams are fused into one national body.
That fusion will not occur through slogans about unity. It will require concrete adaptation: language instruction aligned with Armenia while preserving broader Armenian literacy; institutional leadership that reflects new demographics; media that speaks across internal Armenian divides; and communal standards that privilege national continuity over old-status reflexes.
The choice before Los Angeles is historic
Los Angeles is already the new capital of the Armenian Diaspora in demographic and symbolic terms. The question is whether it will become such in strategic and civilizational terms as well.
If current trends continue without correction, the likely outcome is clear enough: a large, visible, prosperous Armenian-descended population with partial memory, weakened language, attenuated institutions and increasingly symbolic ties to Armenia. In other words, Los Angeles could become the site of the greatest Armenian Diasporan success in numbers and the greatest Armenian Diasporan failure in transmission.
But that outcome is not inevitable.
The same city that magnifies assimilation also makes possible scale. The same American openness that dilutes identity also permits institution-building. The same demographic transformation that has unsettled older communal assumptions also offers the raw material for a renewed Armenian national life, broader than before and more closely tied to Armenia itself.
That will happen only if we abandon comforting illusions.
We must stop confusing population growth with national strength.
We must stop treating the Diaspora as a permanent national condition.
We must stop treating language debates as inheritance disputes while our children drift into English.
We must stop organizing twentieth-century institutions for a twenty-first-century demographic reality.
We must stop speaking as though the Armenian Diaspora still revolves around old centers that no longer carry the same demographic weight.
And above all, we must stop assuming that Armenian continuity in America will take care of itself.
It will not.
Los Angeles is the new capital of the Armenian Diaspora. But a capital is not simply a place where many Armenians live. A capital is the place where a nation organizes its future. If Los Angeles is to deserve that title, then its institutions must understand that the purpose of Diasporan life is not to perfect dispersion, but to overcome it. Not by fantasy. Not by slogans. Not by demanding that every Armenian uproot himself overnight. But by systematically orienting Armenian life, generation by generation, back toward Armenia.
If we meet that challenge seriously, Los Angeles can become not the cemetery of Armenian depth beneath the glitter of ethnic success, but the place where a new and more unified Armenian national life is forged—one that understands the Diaspora as temporary stewardship and Armenia as the permanent center.
If we fail, history may record that the Armenian nation built its largest Diasporan center precisely where it forgot what the Diaspora was for.
A capital is not defined by numbers alone. It is defined by whether it can turn numbers into destiny—and whether it knows where that destiny belongs.
168: If in 2020 Pashinyan could not have predicted the war that would begin
March: 20, 2026
Former RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan writes on his Facebook page. “Yesterday, Pashinyan again resorted to his already predictable behavior, turning the threat of war into a crude political tool rather than a matter of responsibility. This time he went further, actually warning, or rather, blackmailing the Armenian people, that if he loses the upcoming elections, war will be inevitable.
One could think that after the wars, years of failures, losses and disappointment under Pashinyan, such statements would at least be presented with some seriousness or restraint.
Instead, they sound increasingly desperate, almost mechanical, as if repeating the same thought can restore long-lost confidence.
Ironically, the more he tries to advance this narrative, the more it works against him. There is no need to remind the Armenian society about the war. they experienced it, suffered its pain, paid the price for it. And every time he brings up the subject, it doesn’t instill fear of an uncertain future. it brings back very specific memories from his years in power.
Wars during his time were not hypothetical, they were real, devastating and with severe consequences. So when he talks about war, people can’t imagine what it would be like without him. they remember what happened during his reign.
It is therefore not surprising that this argument sounds increasingly hollow. A leader who has failed in the fields of foreign policy and security is now trying to present himself as the only guarantor of peace. This might seem ironic if it were not so serious. The facts speak for themselves.
Opportunities were missed, warnings were ignored, and proposals, such as the 2019 version of the Minsk Group, were not only rejected, but also hidden from the public.
But perhaps the most troubling aspect of this rhetoric is not its cynicism, but its sheer absurdity. Pashinyan speaks as if he has a unique ability to predict the time of war, as if geopolitical realities are adapted to the election results. However, the reality shows something else.
On September 21, 2020, just six days before the start of the 44-day war, he presented his vision “Armenia 2050” in the hall of Matenadaran, full of great ambitions and unrealistic optimism. Not a word, not a hint, not a sign that the country is on the brink of one of the most destructive wars in modern history.
So the question remains. if he could not predict the war that would start in a few days, then on what basis is he now trying to predict a war in the fall?
These constant reminders of the war speak more not about the dangers facing Armenia, but about the incompetence and failures of the person making these statements.
They reflect not strategic perception but political insanity, not leadership but improvisation. And perhaps most tellingly, this approach underestimates the very people it is trying to influence, assuming that they will forget or ignore what they have already experienced. This is perhaps the clearest proof of how detached he is from reality.”
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The connection of power systems of Armenia and Turkey means one thing
March: 20, 2026
The authorities are still talking about the prospect of connecting the electricity systems of Armenia and Turkey. They even started discussing investment issues with the Turkish government. They say: “We are ready to start the day before!”
In other circumstances, the given initiative could perhaps be welcomed. For example: 2009-2010. During “football diplomacy”, when there was a serious lack of electricity in Turkey, Armenia was ready to close a part of it. After all, both the economic and security environments in that period were fundamentally different from the current realities.
Today the situation has changed qualitatively.
Turkey is not only overcoming the electricity deficit at a dynamic pace, but has also adopted a strategy to boost exports, including the South Caucasus markets, in the coming years. The prerequisites for the latter are present, especially considering
Continued growth of generating capacity in Turkey: Akkuyu NPP, new nuclear projects in Sinop and Thrace, more than 750 hydropower plants, etc.
In these conditions, the connection of the electricity systems of Armenia and Turkey means one thing: turning Armenia into a net importer.
This trend is additionally deepened by several intra-systemic processes.
The first of these is Yerevan’s choice in favor of a small modular reactor, which in the long run will replace the current base nuclear capacity model, reducing the system’s level of self-sufficiency.
The second is the rapid and chaotic development of solar energy, which, with limited export potential and high seasonal dependence, cannot provide stable coverage of base demand.
The third is the liberalization of the market, which creates all the conditions for importing electricity from foreign markets and actually increasing Armenia’s external dependence.
The EU also acts as a financial supporter of all this, expressing readiness to provide the necessary funds for the purpose of “de-Russification” of Armenia’s energy sector. Naturally, in the form of loans.
Expected results: increase in public debt, sharp decrease in energy self-sufficiency, new security risks.
Vahe Davtyan, doctor of political sciences, professor
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22 million drams to silence the voice of the Mother See, and Pashinyan’s family defect
March: 20, 2026
“Staff of the Council of the Public Broadcaster” PA provided money under the name of a grant to the “Spiritual-Cultural Public Television Company” CJSC, “Shogakat” in order to organize the liquidation process. The parties signed the contract yesterday, the price of the contract was 22 million drams.
Within this amount, CJSC’s obligations must be repaid, salaries and severance benefits must be paid, and other expenses must be carried out. 2026 According to the state budget, 221 million drams were allocated for “Shogakat” TV station, and 22 million drams will be allocated from this amount for liquidation.
They say that the other part of the money will be transferred to the Council of the Public Broadcaster for the purpose of technical re-equipment in Public Television and Radio.
Let’s remind that the RA government’s 2025 According to the decision of December 25, “Shoghakat” TV company “Shoghakat” CJSC was dissolved on January 1 of this year.
In parallel with the campaign of the Catholicos, the authorities hastily decided to close “Shogakat”. CP deputies regularly generated this idea.
“Shogakat” is a spiritual and cultural TV station. The founder is the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church. It was broadcast 18 hours a day on the spiritual-cultural public TV channel and the H1 satellite TV channel.
In 1995, a TV studio was founded in the Ararat Patriarchal Diocese. The initiator and founder was the presbyterial vicar, Archbishop Garegin Nersisyan. Five years later, it was already operating in the Holy Mother See of Etchmiatsin and was registered as “Shogakat” TV station.
2002 “Shogakat” received a broadcasting license and since November it has been operating as a TV station with 18 hours of air time a day. In addition to traditional church programs, educational and cultural programs were also broadcast. According to the contract signed with the Armenian public television in 2004. “Shogakat” television programs began to be broadcast on H1 satellite TV as well.
In fact, during the reign of all previous governments, this TV station was not closed for spreading content, and the bastion of democracy in Armenia was closed. The TV company belonging to the Mother See was made a thing of the past, and Pashinyan’s family newspaper continues the propaganda.
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“I should not have raised the issue that there would be a reaction from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The woman’s child in the incident
March: 20, 2026
A few days ago, lawyer Roman Yeritsyan warned that the sister of a fallen soldier from Artsakh, the mother of five children, was arrested in front of her children by several policemen from her residence in Nor Hachn and transferred to the investigative department of Dilijan, just because she called for violence against Nikol Pashinyan in her comments on the Facebook platform.
Minister of Internal Affairs Arpine Sargsyan in a briefing with journalists today in the parliament said, that “he is aware of that incident, it is worrying, they will talk to the woman, and there will be an appropriate reaction from the Ministry”.
Today 168.am from Roman Yeritsyan I wondered if the Ministry of Internal Affairs had already spoken with the woman from Artsakh, what equivalent reaction does he expect from the Ministry of Internal Affairs?
“At least as of this moment, no one has spoken to that woman, I should not have mentioned all this in order for there to be a reaction from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It’s just that the police should have been guided by the law and apart from the law, by conscience and inner conviction, which seems to be lacking in the police,” said the lawyer.
He reminded that the police went to the woman’s house at night, in the presence of a young child, without clarifying anything, without providing any information, which is a constitutional violation of criminal procedure, they deprived the woman of her freedom and transferred her to Dilijan police station.
“What will be the reaction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Will it be a formal demonstration or will it give a reaction, but the conclusion of that reaction is already understandable for all of us?”
I assure you that this is not the way the police work, but it was an act of intimidation, they knew very well that this woman would cover everything. The only goal is not to target the government on Facebook and other public platforms, that’s why the police thought that if they scare someone, it won’t happen again. But if you noticed, even under my post, people were not afraid and expressed themselves.
The woman’s child is in a serious psychological condition after that incident, the woman too, she is a person who lost her home and place, whose brother was killed. They break into a man’s house in the middle of the night for a post he made just a year ago, and take him to the police.
Of course, the psychological condition of an Artsakh citizen is strong, he has gone through many things, but these situations have an effect,” emphasized Roman Yeritsyan.
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The Ministry of Internal Affairs urgently assigns 160 million drams of canteen management to one person
March: 20, 2026
Recently, the Ministry of Internal Affairs made a large purchase from “Art Lunch” in a non-competitive, urgent one-person procurement procedure. The legal name of the company is “Ready-Steady”.
More than once written: The affairs of “Artlanchi” completely “went right” under these authorities. this LLC was entrusted with the food supply of several prisons, military units of the Ministry of Defense. Let’s note, however, that they have already managed to record the most serious problems related to the company. back in 2021, the Chamber of Accounts noted: “Ready-Steady LLC prepared food for the convicts at the expense of the funds of the prisons.”
Anyway. On March 18, the Ministry of Internal Affairs bought 160 million drams worth of canteen management services from Ready-Steady under the HMA procedure. The delivery date is from March 7 to December 29 inclusive. By the way, according to the e-procurement platform, this is the first major cooperation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with this LLC.
“Ready-Steady” LLC, “Art Lunch”, was registered since 2002, and appeared in state procurement since 2017, and since 2018, it has started hyperactivity in state procurement: hundreds of contracts worth 100 million drams with various state departments, including non-competitive procurement.
100 percent share of this company belongs to Bakur Melkonyan’s wife, Gayane Margaryan.
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Who are you to call the Catholicos that? Is Nicole the law? Zhanna Aleksanyan
March: 20, 2026
“Ktrich Nersisyan’s brother was an agent of the KGB of the Soviet Union, and the National Security Service made that fact public,” he told journalists briefly today. responded Director of NSS Andranik Simonyan.
Journalists were not surprised by the statement about the leaked information, but by the address of the director of the NSS to His Holiness. to the question, how does the director of the NSS, who is not a politician, use the “Ktrich Nersisyan formulation” when talking about Vehapar, he responded: “As I used.”
168 around this short Q&A․am listened to the assessment of human rights defender Zhanna Aleksanyan.
Zhanna Aleksanyan responded to the observation that today in the National Assembly the young director of the NSS addressed the Catholicos of All Armenians in the name of the basin, and to the question: why in the state, in fact, there is no necessary division, for example, between the position of a politician and a non-political structure, the director of the NSS: “I think that Nikol Pashinyan is forcing them to say ‘Ktrich Nersisyan’, but if he doesn’t even force it, and they go to it voluntarily, then what should I think about the head of the NSS?”
Who are you to call the Catholicos that, what do you represent, who are you, by what right? Only Nikol is the law. Nicole is the law. In other words, that’s how I see this readiness for any illegality.
The head of the NSS has 0 importance for me, if he addresses the Catholicos like that, he has 0 value. And that atmosphere is clearly created by Nikol Pashinyan and he is very happy that he has such subjects who tirelessly serve and repeat any of his illegal manifestations.”
By the way, the document was made public, as Andranik Simonyan noted, through a leak on the KP website, civic.am. at the end of 2025, the website of the ruling power published a document received from the National Security Service, claiming that Archbishop Ezras Nersisyan, the brother of the Catholicos of All Armenians, was recruited by the Soviet KGB in the 80s.
In any case, Mikayel Hambardzumyan, who held the position of former director of the National Security Service under Nikol Pashinyan, drew attention to the fact that the declassified document did not have the signature of Ezras or any data proving that fact.
“Judging by the document, I cannot say that this document really proves that Ezras Srbazan or anyone else about whom such a document may have been drawn up, that this person cooperated with the special services, had a code name, etc., because I repeat, I did not see the signature of that person there. Such a document can be drawn up on anyone,” he said in a conversation with one of the media.
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Baku’s hybrid “strike” did not bypass Pashinyan, is Aliyev “a malicious actor”?
March: 20, 2026
After the government meeting on March 19, Nikol Pashinyan spoke again about the hybrid war in a briefing with journalists: noting.
“Hybrid war is when with paid tools, including the use of artificial intelligence, it is written that I have a house in Dubai, I have a house in France, that my family members have apartments, businesses in different countries, they have businesses in Armenia, they have millions in Swiss banks, that we sell organs, that we use tools for the sexual exploitation of minors. It’s all hybrid warfare.”
In this regard, the RA authorities cooperate with all those partners who have the tools to fight against hybrid warfare and, in particular, disinformation.
At the same time, European Union Enlargement Commissioner Martha Kos in Yerevan stated that they will support Armenia in the fight against hybrid threats.
“We see how ‘malicious actors’ are trying to disrupt democratic processes through cyber attacks, disinformation and other interventions. Europe is here to support, we will support Armenia in the fight against hybrid threats and misinformation, so that RA citizens can vote in free and fair conditions and independently decide the future of their country”.
It should be noted that last December first from Brussels had reported that are being prepared Provide 12 million euros of support to Yerevan to help “counter Russian disinformation before the elections”.
Later, the Foreign Minister of the European Union Kalas announced that it was Yerevan that requested support.
The opposition political forces in Armenia considered the European Union’s intention to deploy a hybrid rapid response group as interference in the internal political life of Armenia, which, of course, the government does not agree with, arguing that it is support to fight against threats.
RA government There is no interference in the internal affairs of Armenia consider even similar direct and indirect statements from Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Moreover, the relevant bodies of RA, in particular, the Foreign Intelligence Service, do not notice or see any danger in the dangerous games and hybrid plans of Baku before the NA elections, as recently we have touched on.
And the fact that Pashinyan, possibly seeing hints against his opponents, remained silent, which is also dangerous, the other day Azerbaijan took a hybrid step against Nikol Pashinyan and his government.
In particular, on March 17, the Azerbaijani “Hakkinaz” was translated in detail and presented under the name vtforeignpolicy.com website:The “investigation” against Armenia and the RA authorities, where serious accusations are made against a number of current and former government officials of the Republic of Armenia, allegedly related to the organization of trafficking and the sale of organs: Nikol Pashinyan, Anahit Avanesyan, Edward Asryan and others.
Later, the RA Ministry of Health reacted to the publication of vtforeignpolicy.com, which we would not have known about if the Azerbaijani media had not presented it thoroughly.
“This time, the disinformation platform attributed to the authorities of Armenia lies about being a participant in the sale of human organs.
Considering the trajectory of foreign disinformation attacks against Armenia, we consider it necessary to announce that “Pashinyan’s black market for organs․ How the Prime Minister of Armenia “sells” his citizens to France for transplants” is completely misinformation.
The field of organ transplantation in the Republic of Armenia is regulated by law and is under appropriate state control.
Such baseless claims have nothing to do with reality and should be considered solely as another attempt to spread misinformation.” it is mentioned in the message of the RA Ministry of Health.
This was followed by the denial of Pashinyan’s spokesperson, which states:
“The website called VT Foreign Policy and Lucas Leiroz, who is presented as the author, have published another fake material, where serious and obviously groundless accusations are made against the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and a number of government officials, allegedly regarding the organization of trafficking and the sale of organs.
It is clear that the publication exploits extremely sensitive and emotional topics for the public, such as human health, organ transplantation and alleged trafficking, in an attempt to create a shocking and discrediting information background. Such a methodology is one of the common tools of information manipulation, when topics with high public sensitivity are used to create distrust towards state institutions and officials.
The dynamics of material diffusion is also remarkable. It was first shared on social media, including on Platform X by the author himself, and then quickly spread through botnets. reproduced in several Azerbaijani media, and today it has already been taken over by some political circles and interested actors in the internal political information field of Armenia. This sequence is typical of the disinformation dissemination mechanisms that are often encountered in the regional information environment.
It is important to note that the claims presented in this publication have no factual basis. S:yes publication misinformation is and: need is d:be considered as another manifestation of informational-hybrid influence actions”.
There was no response from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, although the name of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia was also mentioned.
However, it should be noted that the Ministry of Health did not even mention Azerbaijan, and Pashinyan’s spokesperson, even if he did mention it, by and large, it practically does not change anything. On the other hand, it confirms our concerns that the target of the fight against hybrid threats should not be the political opponents, but Azerbaijan, which promised peace.
And the fact that Azerbaijani propaganda media cannot publish hybrid materials against Armenia without Aliyev’s consent is obvious.
Moreover, 2 days after the above-mentioned publication, Azerbaijani media published the following the information. «President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev approved the Council of Europe Convention on Combating Trafficking in Human Organs.
Wasn’t there an element of hybrid or information warfare here? It should be noted that according to the circulating information, Armenia in January 2018 signed The Convention on Combating Trafficking in Human Organs is another question: has it ratified it?
But the fact that on different occasions the Azerbaijani propaganda machine goes on “hybrid attacks” against the same Nikol Pashinyan and his family is indisputable, and against RA all the time, it is another question how seriously it is taken in practice.
Let’s remind that back in 2020, Nikol Pashinyan himself announced that he possesses confidential information, the disclosure of which could seriously destabilize the internal political situation of Azerbaijan.
Why Pashinyan did not use this in the case of political and negotiation blackmail in Baku is a separate topic for discussion. Perhaps, at this moment, Aliyev is not a “malicious actor” because he is ready to help Pashinyan win the upcoming elections.
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The USA is afraid that Pashinyan will come out of this process with a very bad defeat. Yes
March: 20, 2026
“The people have been deceived for 7 years. Let’s hope that they will finally wake up, because if they don’t, we will no longer have a homeland.” 168TV “Review” said during the program Editor-in-chief of “California Courier” newspaper, American-Armenian figure Harut Sassounyan։
He referred to the annual report published by the United States Intelligence Service, where it is recorded that there are still obstacles on the way to concluding a final peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, directly citing Azerbaijan’s demand to change the Constitution. The report emphasizes that the adoption of the Constitution is not guaranteed, as a referendum has yet to be held in Armenia.
“The United States does not encourage the people to speak out, but is afraid that if the people do speak out, it can hinder Pashinyan’s re-election, that referendum, and in general, Pashinyan will come out of this process with a very bad defeat. The Prime Minister does everything for the benefit of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Europe, but never for the benefit of Armenia,” Harut Sasunyan emphasized.
He emphasized that there has never been such a peace in the history of the world, that the leaders of two countries declared that they have peace when one country occupied the land of the other, tried with a false trial and sentenced the citizens of the other country from 20 years to life. “This is another lie of Pashinyan who brought peace and is trying to scare the people once again that if he is not re-elected, there will be a war. Aliyev and Pashinyan are doing the same thing, they both threaten the Armenian people.”
Details in the 168TV video
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