On 19 November, Armenia’s former chief inspector of Armenia’s Ministry of Defence Colonel-General Movses Hakobyan revealed the reasons for his country’s defeat in the war in a press conference. 

Hakobyan stated that one of the tasks of the Information Centre of Armed Forces was to confuse the enemy by spreading misinformation. “There is a criteria, though that the lie must not exceed the 30% of the truth. In our case it exceeded 100%, the 100% lie is not perceived by anyone. This is where the issue rises. The society, the guys that were fighting do not understand why it happened,” he said.

Other important points of Hakobyan’s press conference were:

1) Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan appointed the most incompetent general as the head of the general staff, Artak Davtyan, who was sacked on 8 June 2020 and afterwards reintegrated following an affair where his son hosted a wedding celebration with numerous guests during the lockdown (CaucasusWatch reported).

2) In April-May 2018 Azerbaijan was able to penetrate 5 kilometres near the village of Zangakun (near Nakhichevan), and Armenia lost military posts next to the village of Areni.

3) The army mobilisation during the war was not efficient: as of 30 September, only 78% of the mobilisation was carried out in Nagorno-Karabakh and 52% in Armenia.

4) On the 5th day of the war there were already 1,500 deserters. They were all isolated in Nagorno-Karabakh so that they would not return to Armenia and cause panic there.

5) Armenia bought the modern Russian military jets SU-30-SM but was unable to use them during the war. That was because no missiles were bought for the military jets. There was also a special decree by the Russian government that prohibits the sale of these missiles abroad.

6) The air defence was inefficient because Armenia bought the OSA air defensce complexes instead of the effective TOR systems. Not a single Azerbaijani drone was hit by OSA during the 44-day war.

7)  Pashinyan's spouse, Anna Hakobyan, attended the meetings of the army staff. After Movses Hakobyan asked the Prime Minister's spouse to leave the session, he was called to Yerevan. Armenia’s Defence Minister Tonoyan informed Movses Hakobyan there that the general was no longer allowed to be seen in Nagorno-Karabakh and that the order came directly from Pashinyan.

8) Russia has given Armenia all kinds of weapons that one could not even dream of and that the “Iskander” missile complex was used during the war.

After the press conference, Nikol Pashinyan's spokesperson Mane Gevorgyan said that General Hakobyan’s statements now had to be dealt with by investigative authorities. The Prosecutor General of Armenia has already given the information from the press conference to the Special Investigation Service for investigation and legal assessment. The chairman of the “Bright Armenia” opposition faction, Edmon Marukyan stated that after the revelations by General Hakobyan, the military-political leadership of Armenia should not retain its offices under any circumstances.

In the meantime, mass protests are still ongoing in the country, demanding Pashinyan’s resignation. The parliamentarians from the Prosperous and Bright Armenia factions stated that they would apply to the National Assembly to convene a session with Pashinyan’s resignation on the agenda. The Bright Armenia leader Edmon Marukyan even emphasised that the signed trilateral document on Nagorno-Karabakh has not been ratified in the parliament and that it creates numerous issues for the Armenian side. “Yesterday they said go out of other 7 villages too. Was it possible to negotiate and settle the issue? Maybe it was, but we have a premier who brought the country to this situation. He is a destabilising factor, a symbol of defeat,” he said, referring to the reports of a spontaneous evacuation of the residents of the 7 villages in the Martakert region.

The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and member of Pashinyan’s My Step faction Lena Nazaryan said that there was no need to cancel the martial law regime in the country. When asked about the possibility of replacing the prime minister with another member from the ruling party, Nazaryan replied that in the country’s current situation, Pashinyan country was more of a stabilising than a destabilising factor.

Meanwhile, Pashinyan inaugurated the country’s new Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan. “Of course, we are in a very complicated and difficult period, when if we consider that in some way the military overload is decreasing due to known circumstances, the diplomatic overload is increasing accordingly, and the diplomatic front is the most important and overloaded now,” he stated. Pashinyan also stressed the importance of the right formulation of problems.