Arthur Vanetsyan's Son Exempted from Military Service: What is the Reason?

The newspaper "Hraparak" reports: "Recently, there were publications and posts on the internet claiming that Arthur Vanetsyan's eldest son, who is of draft age, has not served in the Armenian army and has avoided mandatory military service. Naturally, the authors asserted that Arthur Vanetsyan used his connections to exempt his son from the army.

We inquired how Artur Vanetsyan managed to avoid military service, on what grounds, and for what duration. He told us that when the time for conscription came, like all other young men subject to conscription, he underwent a medical examination, and unexpectedly, some health issue was discovered, which leads to the exemption of conscription for that individual, recognizing him as unfit for mandatory military service.

Of course, the exemption from military service is temporary; a few years later, the exempted individual undergoes a medical examination again, and if it turns out that the health issue has disappeared, he is called up for service.

However, it is noteworthy that this diagnosis and the condition of being unfit for service weighed heavily on Artur Vanetsyan, and in 2019 he wrote to the Minister of Defense requesting that a new medical examination be conducted regarding him and that he be allowed to serve in the Armenian army. However, the application was rejected.

At that time, when he was exempted from military service, Arthur Vanetsyan had been without a position for several months and was under sharp criticism from the authorities and Nikol Pashinyan. Therefore, he could not have influenced the conclusions of the examination and the medical commission in any way. Artur also provided us with a copy of the application."

Details in today’s issue of the newspaper.