Interesting processes have begun in Armenia. The current government seems to have decided to take up the revanchist opposition in earnest. These processes, of course, cannot but attract the attention of neighbors, primarily Azerbaijan, because much will depend on their outcome not only for Armenia itself, but also for the region.
At the end of May, the notorious Archbishop Vazgen Galustyan (aka Bagrat Galstanyan, aka Zrbazan) spoke to reporters and publicly announced that “we have been preparing people for street fighting for several months.”
The leader of the discontented masses himself, in his own language, said that the radical opposition has been carrying out organizational work throughout Armenia for 3-4 months. “We have done a lot of work to prepare people for street fighting and civil disobedience, and I am more than confident that we will put an end to it. There are several circumstances. It will be announced after them. The elections in 2026 should be held without the State Duma,” Galstanyan said mysteriously.
The fact that Zrbazan spoke rather vaguely and in hints did not change the main meaning of his statements – the so-called militant wing of the opposition is preparing a coup d’etat. Considering Nikol Pashinyan to be a frivolous opponent, the opposition did not consider it necessary to hide its intentions, not expecting any harsh actions from him. After all, revanchist propaganda has tried very hard to work on public opinion, and believes that it has succeeded in creating in the eyes of the people an image of a clown dancing to someone else’s tune, and even without a marriage certificate in violation of all “traditional values.” Nikol Pashinyan and his team, consisting of inexperienced people who came to high positions from street rallies, were not taken seriously and believed that the “Civil Contract” would become easy prey.
The announcement of the coup plan also aimed to inform as many people as possible about it. The revanchist opposition is sure that in fact the majority of Armenian citizens hate Pashinyan, and when they hear that the monk Zrbazan is gathering an “army”, they will rush to Yerevan from all over the country. Such self-confidence had already played a cruel joke on Galstanyan a year ago. When he set off barefoot from the border with Azerbaijan to Yerevan last May to overthrow Pashinyan, watching from behind the scenes, coup ideologue Robert Kocharyan expected thousands of people to join him along the way. Hundreds of thousands joined Pashinyan in 2018, why not try the same method for Zrbazan? But Zrbazan crawled to the capital accompanied by only a small group of people. By organizing this “crusade”, the opposition forgot about its defeat in September 2021, when the party of Pashinyan, who lost the war, won a majority in the parliamentary elections, and Kocharyan failed miserably.
A sensible politician should have thought twice and changed his tactics. Because if the people are not against defeat in the war and the loss of foreign territories that have been hanging like a stone around Armenia’s neck for a quarter of a century, then it will be even more difficult to move them with other slogans.
So, after last year’s failure, the revanchists, whose leader Archbishop Galstanyan was chosen, disappeared from view for a while and set off with “exercises” in the regions of the country, where they began to form strike groups. There was no hope for the people of Yerevan anymore.
To further inflame the situation, Zrbazan, on behalf of the ideologists and Garegin II, provoked Pashinyan to a showdown with the church. The calculation was justified – Pashinyan responded to the accusations of “cohabitation” in his usual manner – and off we go. The Armenian Prime Minister was already at odds with the Armenian Apostolic Church, so the war between Pashinyan and the church very harmoniously turned into a hot phase. If the Armenian people did not rise up after losing the war, they should rise up in response to the vilification of their church. That’s what Robert Kocharian and his gang thought.
But everything went wrong again – the people did not rise up. We had to call for the help of “heavy artillery” in the person of Russian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan. At one time, this role was assigned to Ruben Vardanyan, who failed it. However, Karapetyan was not allowed to finish it either. Today, he is sitting in the Yerevan pre-trial detention center and, following the example of Vardanyan, writes messages from behind bars, telling how much he has done for Armenia.
A very remarkable picture is emerging – one is on trial in Azerbaijan, the other is under investigation in Armenia. Two of the largest Armenian entrepreneurs in Russia. And the “second homeland” is not even thinking of fighting for their release, which was also not expected in revanchist circles. They were sure that Moscow would almost send an army to liberate, if not Vardanyan, then at least Karapetyan. Instead, if the rumors are to be believed, inspections are being prepared at Tashir’s facilities in Russia. It is rumored that Pashinyan received the go-ahead from Moscow to arrest such a figure as Samvel Karapetyan. Whether this is true or not, only Pashinyan himself knows, but the indifference of the Russian side means something.
Moreover, before the start of active actions against terrorists, Nikol Pashinyan visited Turkey and met with President Erdogan. The pro-Russian opposition, which for obvious reasons did not dare to accuse Pashinyan of collusion with Moscow, immediately attacked the prime minister, accusing him of working for Baku and Ankara. It was very funny to read the assumptions that Samvel Karapetyan was arrested on instructions from Azerbaijan. We expect that the exposure of the terrorist group will also be credited to our account. Armenian publications are already writing that the arrests are Pashinyan’s gift to Baku for the Day of the Armed Forces. It’s really very funny.
The Armenian revanchist opposition and its terrorist gangs are afraid to admit to themselves that changes have taken place in the consciousness of the Armenian society after the 44-day war. The revanchists are so passionate about themselves that they do not notice the strengthening of their positions by Pashinyan. He stands so firmly on his feet that he risked questioning the notorious “genocide” and going out to fight the church, and this did not end with lynching of the outraged masses. The revanchists were mistaken in thinking that Pashinyan and Co. could be taken with their bare hands. He was preparing for their “X” hour in parallel with them and met it fully armed. With evidence of the terrorists’ anti-state intentions, including audio recordings of their negotiations, in which they call the people “cattle” and brag about the presence of Zrbazan “technologies for raising the bestial people and donkeys to their feet.”
“This process will go down in history as a failed coup by the scoundrels,” Nikol Pashinyan said after reviewing the coup plan received from a source in the opposition.
“When a Catholicos is a sacrilegious person, the archbishop is a terrorist. Ktrich Nersisyan, who blesses the so-called “Sacred Movement”, has nothing to say? Do the archbishops who support the terrorists hiding under the cassock have nothing to say? The sacrilegious Catholicos and his terrorist archbishops pose a threat to national security,” Taron Chakhoyan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the RA Prime Minister, told reporters.
In a statement, the Investigative Committee of Armenia reported that the “Holy Struggle” movement had purchased various equipment and funds necessary to carry out terrorist attacks. Numerous strike groups of former military and police officers began to form. Judging by the case file, everything was set up by the terrorists with great seriousness. The groups were supposed to create an atmosphere of chaos and uncontrollability in the country at the “x” hour, while certain figures in Yerevan would overthrow Pashinyan. For this purpose, terrorist attacks, shelling, preferably with mass deaths, power outages, arson attacks on public facilities, blocking streets and roads, and so on were planned.
The plan was detailed. And Archbishop Galstanyan will not be able to disown him, because he himself has already confessed everything, bragging in front of journalists. He won’t be able to say that he didn’t know anything.
The revanchists were hoping for outside help against Pashinyan, but they did not take into account the real geopolitics. The result is obvious. Samvel Karapetyan, who came to clear the way for Kocharyan and raise Armenians to defend Catholicos Garegin, ended up behind bars. The pop fraudster Zrbazan, in the world of Vazgen Galstanyan, went there with a huge burden of criminal responsibility, which he himself confessed. He will be accompanied by a number of other opposition figures. The Dashnaks’ apartments are being searched. The entire revanchist riffraff froze, waiting for their turn. Everyone who naively believed that Pashinyan would bother with a deception like impeachment, while the opposition would prepare terrorist attacks on the authorities.
The Armenian prime minister turned out to be not as simple as the revanchists would like to think. In foreign policy, he is still a junior, he has to study and study, but in domestic politics it was not easy for his opponents to beat him.
Despite the serious flaws in relations with its neighbors, the current Armenian government has the potential to correct mistakes. If Pashinyan manages to get the forces that prevented positive steps out of the way, perhaps he can turn Armenia into a normal member of the international community. As this country’s closest neighbors, we wish it that, because without it there will be no lasting peace.