When I was informed about the state of our army, my first reaction was to leave this office and run away: Pashinyan

The Prime Minister of Armenia, representative of the "Yes" campaign Nikol Pashinyan responded in Tatev to the thesis that he is allegedly isolating former political and state figures in order to hand over Artsakh. As reported by "Armenpress", Nikol Pashinyan recounted that one of his first steps in May 2018 was to obtain information about the armament of the Armenian army.

“When I was informed about the state of our army, my first emotional reaction was to leave this office and run away, because the situation was disastrous. It is not good to say this now, but I will give an example… Serzh Sargsyan himself brought up this example and said, ‘Our boys are fighting with weapons from the 1980s.’ If you were holding Artsakh, why was our army fighting with 1980s weapons? If you were holding Artsakh, why did the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh have a deteriorated air defense system by 2018? With that degraded air defense system, how were you holding Artsakh? Were the supplies you were providing to our soldiers meant for the bears and dogs that Manvel Grigoryan was feeding? With food intended for those bears and dogs, how were you maintaining our soldiers to also hold Artsakh? Has Serzh Sargsyan ever eaten food designated for soldiers in his life? When I went to the positions in May 2018, I asked what food was available, and I ate everything that was brought – an hour and a half later, I didn’t know what to do because of the heartburn. How can these children stay alert at the border? My first instruction was to quickly take measures to change the order and quality of soldiers’ food, because food was supplied by certain high-ranking officials with their well-known ‘cuts’. You were looting the army to hold Artsakh,” emphasized Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister is confident that the current air defense system of the army has high combat readiness, as Armenia acquired state-of-the-art air defense systems in 2019. “We have acquired modern Su-30SM fighters and we will acquire more. Today, soldiers in 43 military units eat quality and dignified food,” Pashinyan highlighted.

He advised Serzh Sargsyan, Robert Kocharyan, Gagik Khachatryan, Gagik Beglaryan, Aram Harutyunyan, and others to voluntarily return the embezzled funds. “Return what you have embezzled; you will not escape, and you will not be sheltered under the skirts of Europeans. You should bring back penny by penny and invest it in the development of the army and the preservation of the self-determination of Artsakh. I advise you to bring it back voluntarily; if you do not return it, you will be taken into custody. There is no other option,” concluded Pashinyan.