May 18, 2026
“Pressing” The guest of Satik Seyranyan in the program is the former secretary general of the Switzerland-Armenia parliamentary group, the chairman of the Council of Armenian and pro-Armenian organizations in Switzerland. Sargis Shahinyan is
The main theses of the interview are below.
- During the summit of the European political community, Armenia appeared superficially, just as a host party. However, during that time, not a single issue affecting Armenia was either raised or resolved. That gathering was needed by the current administration to show that it can bring 48 heads of state here, and, that he is close to them, particularly Macron. The documents signed with the EU and France were not treaties, but declarations of intent, in which there were only tendencies and nothing of substance. That’s alln: Before the elections, there was support for Nikol Pashinyan.
- Europe will not even give a finger to our securityyto protect it.
- Of course, Armenia will not enter the EU. Even Ukraine was not admitted to the EU, let alone Armenia, which has less value for Europe than Ukraine. We need to clear the dust in our eyes and see that we are choosing between the worst and the worst. On June 7, we should choose not Russia or Europe, but ourselves, Armenia.
- The Karabakh conflict was not just nail dust that passed. The reality is that we lost the war and from then on we had to figure out what to do. We didn’t do that, and today the Armenian authorities make concession after concession using the salami method… As a result, we are not safe today.:
- Liberalization of visas and other European “goods”, even if they become a reality, is the price of losing Karabakh and our other territorial and other concessions. And we have to think, after all this, do we agree that the prime minister should continue to keep his seat?
- What happened at Nikol Pashinyan’s meeting with the Armenian community in Switzerland, when he questioned the Armenian Genocide, its causes and consequences, was denial and cynical denial.:
- What Nikol Pashinyan is doing is a Turkish plan: the loss of Karabakh, denial of the Genocide, the “return” of 300,000 Azerbaijanis to Armenia… The leader of this plan is not Erdogan himself, but Hakan Fidan, the current foreign minister, who will be the next president of Turkey.:
- There is a problem of the intention and ability to hold the country today. I am not naive enough to think that we should continue to remain enemies with Azerbaijan and Turkey. But let’s not forget that under this administration and with its permission, the sovereign territory of our country was occupied by Azerbaijan. Voting for this regime in the elections, standing behind it, is a step against Armenia’s security. I ask people to fulfill their civic duty and participate in the elections on June 7.
- If we pay for Pashinyan’s hearts and smiles with Syunik, it will be a low price. I am afraid that we will pay in Armenia.
- As for TRIPP, Armenia has nothing to do there, nothing to do. Armenia has no strategic words to say. On the contrary, we will lose the logistical capabilities of Iran and Russia. We are exposed to this problem.
- The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has already done her dirty work when she twice announced Aliyev as their reliable pole.
- It is not that China is waiting for the opening of 42 kilometers of Syunik. What will that give him, just a 1-2% turnover chance? I don’t understand the excitement of RA leaders. It would be beneficial if all communications were opened.
- Macron in 2027 in April, willy-nilly, he will leave. And God forbid that his successor will have the same approach to Armenia as Macron, that he will consider us as a milk cow. Today, the whole world has a water problem. And in Armenia, the French company owns the water monopoly.
- You and I will leave here if 300,000 Azerbaijanis came to Armenia. I’m not spreading racial hatred, but we know the consequences it can have:
- The “resolution” of the Karabakh issue in this way made it possible for the Taiwan issue to be “solved” in front of the silence of the world. Unfortunately, we are setting a bad example.
- Your likes, hearts, your statements, European leaders, are of no concern to anyone except this administration. I hope the people will prove it on June 7.
- We used to have serious diplomacy, now we don’t. The state must have a vision. Today’s diplomacy of Armenia is not needed, because others put their diplomacy on their table:
- What is against this administration’s propaganda theses, according to them, is a hybrid war. For this they are paid huge sums of money, millions of euros.
- If any Western leader behaved as Pashinyan did this morning in the Arabkir community while talking to the doctor, the law enforcement agencies would definitely call him to account. When you put reality in front of Pashinyan, which is a direct expression of his incompetence, the balance is lost. Pashinyan, who stands humble and submissive in front of the whole world, behaves like that only here. This man cannot have international weight, he cannot express and explain normally:
- We could not understand that we should be pro-Armenian first of all. The voter should know this clearly, that he should choose Armenia and definitely go to the polls.
- With a high probability, 4 opposition forces will enter the parliament in the June 7 vote. You have to be smart to get rid of Nikol Pashinyan from June 8. The actors of the opposition must put aside their ego, their cocky approach, their ego and solve the issue.
- It is very important not to give in to provocations, because Nikol Pashinyan is capable of anything. he can, for example, turn people against each other on June 8:
- Pashinyan threatens with war the people who can be affected by it, he can only blackmail weak people.
- At the time of Levon Ter Petrosyan, on March 1, 2008, Pashinyan himself bled. People have forgotten, but the records are there, the videos are there, yes, and it’s real. How can I believe in a person who is ready to let the blood of his own nation flow?
- Diaspora cannot be guided by Pashinyan’s agendas. Diaspora has its own power and role, its weight.
- God forbid, it will be confirmed that Nikol Pashinyan intended to destroy the Church since 2018, but everything is leading to it… This already makes it clear whose hands we have fallen into.
- Unfortunately, among Armenians, the knife does not reach the bone, we do not understand that a fire has broken out:
Let’s remind that days after the color revolution of 2018 in Armenia, on April 29, a man with a backpack, climbing on the Cathedral, tried to saw the cross of the cathedral in order to replace it with an iron rose.
Details in the video.
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168: Pashinyan has lost his self-control and sense of reality. Samvel Kar
May 18, 2026
Chairman of the “Strong Armenia” party, prime ministerial candidate Samvel Karapetyan made a statement.
“Pashinyan, who holds the post of Prime Minister, has shown an insolent attitude towards our citizens, a person who said that there are 3 million Prime Ministers in the country has lost his self-control, we will put an end to this disgrace on June 7.”
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RFE/RL – Papers, Please: German Military Museum Bars Ukrainians, Russians, And
Museum Bars Ukrainians, Russians, And Some Other Nationalities
May 16, 2026 13:28 CET
- By Amos Chapple
A Soviet surface-to-air missile on display at the Bundeswehr Museum of German Defense Technology in Koblenz. Photo: Shutterstock
A popular military museum in western Germany is turning away nationals of 26 countries that Berlin has deemed pose “specific security risks.”
Entry restrictions at the Bundeswehr Museum of German Defense Technology in Koblenz have been in force for several weeks but news of the unusual rule emerged recently in Ukrainian media after a mother from that country was denied access.
“At the entrance we were shown a list of countries that are prohibited from entering,” the woman said in a social media post, adding, “We drove with our children for two hours [to get there].”
A notice on the website of the museum dated March 3 notes that visitors must present identification documents at the entrance. “Due to military security regulations,” the notice warns, “access to the collection is currently denied to nationals of countries listed in accordance with Section 13, Paragraph 1, Number 17 of the Security Clearance Act.”
A staff member of the museum, who declined to be named, told RFE/RL that he was unable to comment fully on the selective ban but stressed “it’s not our rule.”
The facility belongs to the Bundeswehr — Germany’s armed forces — and, despite being open to the public, is designated a “defense technology study collection.” The museum worker said the entry restriction “is a topic which is also a problem for us,” adding, “We don’t know [how] to handle it.”
Kristian Klinck, a spokesman for the branch of the Bundeswehr that oversees the museum, told RFE/RL on May 13 that the Koblenz facility is primarily intended as a training facility to familiarize staff with foreign and domestic military hardware and is only open to the public in a “secondary capacity.”
Klinck added that, “as most of the weapons in the study have not been demilitarized, the study is located within a Military Security Area,” with subsequent security restrictions.
In response to a question about the nationalities banned from entering the museum, Klinck directed RFE/RL to Germany’s Interior Ministry, which maintains a list of countries deemed to pose a potential security risk for Berlin.
The latest version of the list, compiled in 2022, includes Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Iran, Pakistan, Moldova, Afghanistan, all Caucasus nations, and all five Central Asian countries. Berlin has not publicly revealed any specific reasoning for countries being included on the list.
Recent Google reviews of the German museum indicate the access restrictions have caused heated scenes at the entrance.
One Ukrainian woman complained in March, saying, “I’m honestly shocked,” adding, “I never thought you could be denied entry to a museum based on your nationality.” The woman claimed she had been threatened with a gun during a dispute with a security guard.
The museum responded to the one-star review, saying, “No one from the security staff will threaten you with a weapon.”
The Koblenz military museum spans some 7,200 square meters and holds one of Europe’s largest collections of military hardware. Since 1982 more than 1 million people have visited the facility, according to its website.
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RFE/RL – Man Dead After Ripping Pashinian Poster
- Naira Bulghadarian
Armenian law-enforcement authorities reported at the weekend the death by suicide of a man who was taken to a psychiatric clinic after tearing down an election campaign poster of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and being arrested as a result.
The Investigative Committee moved to charge the resident of the town of Artashat, identified as Armen Hovannisian, with obstruction of the ruling Civil Contract party’s election campaign following his arrest on Friday. He was transferred from a local police station to the Nubarashen clinic in Yerevan after engaging what the Armenia Interior Ministry described as “mentally unbalanced behavior” the next morning. According to the ministry, Hovannisian hanged himself there several hours later.
The Health Ministry insisted that hospital staff did their best to save the man’s life. But it did not clarify why they failed to prevent the suicide.
The country’s human rights ombudswoman, Anahit Manasian, expressed concern over Hovannisian’s death, saying that it raised “very serious questions” about the safety of patients at Armenian mental institutions. But unlike opposition politicians and other critics of the government, Manasian stopped short of criticizing his arrest.
In a joint statement, five pro-opposition lawyers insisted that Hovannisian should not have been arrested because under Armenian law campaign vandalism is an administrative, rather than criminal, offense.
“This serious crime that cost a citizen’s life cannot be presented as an ‘accident’ or a ‘personal tragedy,’” said the statement. “This is the result of legal impunity and blatant distortion of the law by law enforcement agencies.”
Since the official start of campaigning for the June 7 parliamentary elections, nobody is known to have been arrested or fined for vandalizing campaign posters of opposition contenders. The opposition Hayastan alliance reported on Saturday the destruction of several of its posters displayed behind protective glass in a public area in Yerevan. Unknown assailants also smashed the glass.
“Let’s bet that our glorious law-enforcement officers will not find the culprits,” said Artur Khachatrian, a senior member of the bloc.
The election campaign has also been marked by regular arrests of individuals insulting Pashinian or his allies on social media. No Pashinian supporters have been prosecuted on such charges.
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More Armenian Opposition Supporters Arrested Ahead Of Elections
- Karine Simonian
Ten more supporters of billionaire and opposition leader Samvel Karapetian were arrested over the weekend after confronting members of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party in disputed circumstances.
The incidents took place in two villages in Armenia’s northern Lori province close to Karapetian’s hometown of Tashir. Videos posted on social media showed scores of his supporters waving flags and chanting “Samvel Prime Minister!” during a Civil Contract procession led by Defense Minister Suren Papikian. Papikian can be seen urging them to “open the road” before telling police to take action against the “hooligans” and promising to teach their leaders a “political lesson.”
Armenia’s Investigative Committee reported ten arrests in the following hours. It accused the Karapetian supporters of deliberately trying to disrupt the ruling party’s campaign rallies. It claimed that they blocked a road with cars in one of the villages and “turned on loud music” and assaulted Civil Contract campaigners in the other.
The law-enforcement agency told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday that six of the suspects have been remanded in pretrial custody and another moved to house arrest. The status of the three other detainees remained unclear.
Meanwhile, Karapetian’s Strong Armenia bloc condemned the arrests and demanded the immediate release of the ten persons. The gatherings of Strong Armenia supporters coincided with the Civil Contract rallies, it said, accusing the ruling party of a staging a pre-planned “provocation.” A senior member of the bloc, Gohar Meloyan, released a short video that seemingly showed a group of Civil Contract members charging towards Karapetian supporters demonstrating on a roadside.
Karapetian’s bloc is widely regarded as the most popular of the opposition groups running in Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections. Dozens of its members or supporters have been arrested in recent weeks mostly on vote-buying charges denied by the bloc.
Meloyan put at around 300 the total number of such individuals prosecuted or briefly detained by police. She insisted that Strong Armenia remains undaunted by the crackdown.
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Pashinian Vows To ‘Take Out’ Key Election Challengers
- Robert Zargarian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pledged to “take out” the leaders of the three main opposition groups running in Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary election as he furiously argued with a disgruntled woman during a campaign engagement in Yerevan on Monday.
The middle-aged woman sparked a shouting match with Pashinian after approaching and accusing him of having “stolen my fatherland” in the city’s northern Arabkir district.
“You have wiped out a whole young generation,” she added, apparently referring to the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. “You have stolen my brother, my joy. You’ve tried to bring us to our knees. But we haven’t gotten on our knees.”
“If you are Rob, I’m going to bring Rob to his knees, Rob is going to go to prison, I’m going to take out Rob,” Pashinian shouted back, referring to former President Robert Kocharian. “I’m also going to bring the Kaluga man (Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian) to his knees and take him out. Serzh [Sarkisian] and Gago [Tsarukian] as well.”
Pashinian also rejected her claim that he has “ruined the country.” “You have ruined, plundered it with Karabakh,” he charged in what appeared to be another attack on Karabakh Armenians.
Pashinian went on to blame his election challengers for a newly released video in which masked men speaking in an apparent Karabakh Armenian accent call for his violent overthrow. He described the unknown men as “fugitives” from Nagorno-Karabakh and said he will “take them out” too.
When asked by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service whether he has any evidence of opposition connection to the video, Pashinian said: “The evidence is that their rhetoric corresponds [to the video’s content.]”
Pashinian already stepped up his verbal attacks on the opposition leaders last week, branding Karapetian a “foreign spy,” pledging to send Kocharian back to prison and insulting Tsarukian’s fugitive son. The ex-president leading the opposition Hayastan alliance responded by calling him a “moron” and questioning his sanity.
Pashinian’s latest outburst provoked a storm of condemnation from the three opposition heavyweights and other critics of the Armenian government. Karapetian’s Strong Armenia bloc portrayed it as further proof that he is unfit to continue ruling the country.
“Armenia needs a real leader,” the bloc wrote above a video of the incident posted on its Facebook page.
“He insults because he has nothing to say, he has no program,” Tsarukian told journalists. “He has fooled the people for eight years, right from the beginning.”
“In addition to having sick dictatorial tendencies, he is also misogynistic, constantly trying to attack women,” said Kristine Vartanian, a senior Hayastan member. “But the women he comes across are all strong and dignified.”
Pashinian has repeatedly been confronted by lone angry voters during his campaign trips to various parts of the country. They included the mother of one of 15 Armenian soldiers who were found dead in their makeshift barracks destroyed by a major fire in January 2023. She blamed Pashinian for the deaths during his campaign rally on Friday in Metsamor, a town 40 kilometers west of Yerevan. Her voice was eventually drowned out by “Nikol Prime Minister!” chants from Pashinian’s supporters.
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RFE/RL – Pashinian Signals More Territorial Concessions To Azerbaijan
- Karlen Aslanian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has signaled plans to cede more territory to Azerbaijan in case of his victory in Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections.
Campaigning for the elections late last week, Pashinian pointed to “three Azerbaijani territories” controlled by Armenia when he was asked by a voter about further territorial concessions favored by him.
Pashinian appeared to refer to three enclaves inside Armenia which were controlled by Azerbaijan in Soviet times and occupied by the Armenian army in the early 1990s. The Azerbaijani side seized at the time a bigger Armenian enclave, Artsvashen, as well as large swathes of agricultural land belonging to border communities in Armenia’s northern Tavush province. It occupied more Armenian territory during border clashes in 2021 and 2022.
“As a result of the delimitation [of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border] we need to find solutions, [decide] what to do because if Artsvashen is fully given back … The conflict is fully overcome. We should now sort out its last consequences through the delimitation.”
The main opposition groups challenging Pashinian’s Civil Contract party in the June 7 elections seized upon that statement, saying that Armenia will again give up more territory and gain nothing in return if Pashinian is reelected. They insisted that this would further weaken the country.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leading member of former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance, claimed at the weekend that Pashinian has already given such a promise to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Saghatelian warned Armenians that he will claim a popular mandate to make such a concession if he wins reelection.
“This man is under their [Azerbaijani leaders’] domination,” said Narek Karapetian of the Strong Armenia alliance. “He is a prisoner of his own promises to those people [in Azerbaijan.]”
Gagik Tsarukian, the leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party, likewise expressed concern over Pashinian’s statement during a campaign trip to Armenia’s Syunik province on Monday. “That’s not peace,” he said.
Pashinian’s government controversially ceded four other border areas to Azerbaijan in 2024, sparking massive anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan. Protest leaders backed by the Armenian opposition said that the unilateral land transfer will encourage Baku to demand further Armenian concessions.
An Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty initialed last August commits the two South Caucasus nations to recognizing each other’s territorial integrity. It says that they will be “guided” by the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration in which newly independent ex-Soviet republics recognized each other’s Soviet-era borders. Pashinian has portrayed this reference as a key guarantee of peace.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry downplayed the legal significance of that declaration in 2024, saying that it “has nothing to do with the question of where the borders of CIS member states lie and which territories belong to which country.” Yerevan deplored that statement at the time, saying it “may mean that Azerbaijan has territorial claims to Armenia.”
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Verelq: Elections in Armenia. From state durability to credit
Ahead of the parliamentary elections to be held on June 7, the political field of Armenia has turned into a platform for the clash of plans. While the ruling party promises to lay the foundations of an eternal state, abandoning short-term planning, the opposition proposes radical steps to rescue the debt-ridden population and renew dilapidated infrastructure.
The pre-election race, which started on May 8 and brought together 19 political forces (17 parties and 2 blocs), will continue until June 5. The ruling Civil Pact party, which runs under number 16 under the slogan “Stand Up for Peace,” submitted an extensive list of 283 main and 10-minority candidates to the CEC. Nikol Pashinyan, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, called the active participation of children in the campaign a “children’s revolution” at a meeting with citizens in the Davtashen administrative district.
According to him, the people and the Government are on the same pulse, and the country has finally overcome the logic of planning life only “after the New Year, after the holidays”. Pashinyan emphasized that the main task of the elections is to take Armenia on a hundred-year and thousand-year highway, providing the state with the status of a safe, developed and eternally existing republic.
The opposition proposes a completely different agenda, focusing on acute socio-economic problems. On May 17, representatives of the “Strong Armenia” bloc conducted a campaign in the city of Metsamor. Narek Karapetyan, a member of the Political Council, noted with regret that the energy heart of the country remained in the Soviet past. during twenty years, only small kiosks have been renovated here. The alliance claims that most of the taxes paid by the NPP should be returned to Metsamor for the active development of the city.
The issue of agriculture in the Ararat Valley is no less acute. we have 95 percent water loss due to old irrigation systems. Karapetyan sees the solution to the problem in the modernization of the Sevan-Hrazdan cascade. In addition, the alliance promises radical credit reforms.
Citing Georgia as an example, where the loan interest rate is 8%, compared to 15-24% in Armenia, the oppositionists proposed a new mechanism for the protection of debtors. if a person is unable to pay the loan for 18 months, the Enforcement Service will not freeze his accounts, and the principal amount of the loan will be repaid by the state at the expense of the citizen’s tax payments after he enters official employment.
The theme of social justice and financial amnesty was continued by the “Prosperous Armenia” party. Party leader during the large-scale march held in Erebuni administrative region Gagik Tsarukyan emphasized that their pre-election program was not written while sitting in the cabinets, but on the basis of the real issues raised during the meetings with the residents of the marzes.
Reminding that he comes from an ordinary worker’s family and was founded from scratch, Tsarukyan promised to make education and health care completely free. And for the population affected by co-epidemic, economic crisis and war, the main lifeline should be the complete forgiveness of problematic loans up to 3 million drams. The leader of the party assured the voters that he neither wants a position, nor recognition, nor does he have a personal issue to resolve. its sole purpose is to put a smile on people’s faces.
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Arrests in Lori. the oppositionists obstructed the CP campaign
The court of Lori region arrested six supporters of the “Strong Armenia” alliance on charges of violently obstructing the election campaign of the ruling “Civil Agreement” party. campaign, which was coordinated by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, who was on vacation.
The RA Investigative Committee reported details of the criminal proceedings initiated in connection with the incidents that took place in Lori Marz. According to the pre-investigative body, on May 16, a group of supporters of the “Strong Armenia” alliance purposefully tried to defeat the pre-announced campaign events of the ruling power.
The incidents were registered in several settlements. At the beginning of Norashen, the participants of the action blocked the traffic section of the road with cars. On the same day, the representatives of the opposition turned on loud music in the square of Andranik street in the Metsavan settlement and, according to the investigation, used violence against the participants of the meeting of the “Civil Contract” party.
The remarkable circumstance of these events is that in those days the campaign of the ruling party in Lori marz was personally led by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia who was on vacation. Suren Papikyan։
As a result of police actions, ten people were initially arrested on suspicion of obstructing propaganda by a group of people. As of now, according to the court’s decision, six of them have been arrested, and one more has been placed under house arrest as a preventive measure.
Regarding the other three detainees, the pre-investigation body has also submitted arrest petitions to the court, the dates of which have not been set yet. The criminal investigation continues.
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Samvel Karapetyan criticized Pashinyan’s “debt economy”
The pre-election campaign in Armenia is entering an active phase, revealing sharp socio-economic contradictions. Within the framework of his visit to the Lori Marz affected by the earthquake, Prime Minister candidate Samvel Karapetyan severely criticized the current government’s economic policy, placing the main emphasis on the problems of public debt, demographic crisis and inefficient spending of budget funds.
On May 17, meeting with the residents of Spitak, the leader of the “Strong Armenia” party referred to the historical memory of the region. The politician recalled the tragic events of 1988, noting that he was not far from the epicenter of the earthquake and personally witnessed the scale of the destruction. Turning to the modern agenda, Karapetyan emphasized that today the region suffers from lack of attention and lack of real production. According to him, instead of systematically restoring the industrial potential, the authorities are busy with populism, loudly reporting about asphalted kilometers.
The opposition candidate expressed his conviction that the entire modern economy of the country is based exclusively on debt obligations. Breaking out of that vicious circle will take a long time and will require abandoning short-term projects in favor of real job creation. Karapetyan accused the country’s leadership of not opening any large enterprises for the past eight years, while his team has implemented several such projects. He also questioned the quality of infrastructure projects of the authorities, hinting at corruption risks. Local residents defended the candidate, complaining that the asphalt laid last year has already started to crumble. However, the main threat to the state, according to the politician, remains mass emigration and depopulation.
Let us remind that the extraordinary parliamentary elections in Armenia are scheduled for June 7. The campaign, in which 17 parties and 2 political blocs participate, will continue until June 5. The main opponent of the opposition is the ruling party “Civil Agreement” led by the current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which is nominated under the number 16, with the slogan “Stand up for peace”.
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