The Next Ukraine: West Destroys Armenia | H. Ishkhanyan & N. Navasardyan

## Foreign backing and early reactions What emerges from the conversation is a narrative of elections less as a domestic contest than as the culmination of an externally enabled project. Participants described a pattern in which foreign actors—European institutions, certain Western leaders, and regional capitals—acted in concert to pre-emptively bless the incumbent, reducing the space for normal electoral uncertainty. Congratulatory messages issued when only a handful of ballots had been counted were read not as mere politeness but as geopolitical signaling: a declaration that the outcome was already settled by forces beyond the ballot box. This is not merely a question of diplomats misreading the count; the discussion suggests these early reactions functioned as a green light for domestic actors to use administrative power without fear of international reprisal. The conversation links this foreign imprimatur to a broader strategy of political engineering that has unfolded in recent years. Funding for information campaigns, high-profile visits by European officials, and public endorsements are described as parts of an infrastructure that sustained the incumbent’s political project after the 2020 conflict. Participants painted a picture in which, with outside backing, the ruling establishment consolidated control over institutions—judiciary, security services, and media—so that formal democracy exists alongside growing authoritarian practices. The result, they argue, is a hollowed-out electoral process in which the presence of international observers and congratulatory statements serve to legitimize outcomes rather than to verify them. ## Corridor plan and regional goals At the center of the geopolitical concerns discussed is the so-called corridor project—a proposed transit route through southern Armenian territory linking Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhchivan exclave and providing a contiguous route that could reshape regional dynamics. The conversation frames the corridor as the strategic prize motivating much of the external support for the incumbent. Rather than a neutral infrastructure project, it is described as a lever to reorient Armenia’s sovereignty: a corridor that would afford new strategic access to Iran’s borders, potentially invite foreign military presence, and tighten the regional grip of Ankara and Baku. Participants did not treat the corridor as a simple trade initiative but as a multi-dimensional project with clear security and geopolitical returns. The corridor would bypass Russia and sever traditional economic ties, facilitating new alignments with Western and Turkic partners. In the discussion, favors and congratulations from a constellation of states—some with shared Turkish or Central Asian interests—were interpreted as evidence of a coordinated regional plan. In short, the corridor is less an economic link than a strategic re-scripting of Armenia’s position in a new regional order, one that critics in the conversation believe would institutionalize Armenia’s marginalization and strategic vulnerability. ## Bribes, arrests, and repression A recurrent theme is the use of state resources and coercion to tilt the political playing field. The conversation details instances of targeted arrests of opposition mayors and organizers, pre-election pardons and budgetary giveaways, and the delegitimization of political adversaries via criminal prosecutions. These actions are described not as isolated abuses but as systematic tactics designed to paralyze opposition organizing and to engineer electoral outcomes. Financial inducements before the vote—health insurance rollouts, pension increases, license pardons—were characterized as calculated bribes intended to sway voters. Simultaneously, the removal of key opposition organizers through arrest and house detention is portrayed as an effort to disarm opposition party machines. Participants also raised chilling examples of extrajudicial pressure: suspicious deaths, physical attacks against opposition figures, and the imprisonment of critics for social-media posts. The cumulative effect, as the conversation presents it, is a climate in which political competition is permitted only in form, while the state apparatus is marshalled to secure desired results. ## Artsakh, refugees, and state threat Underlying the immediate concerns about elections and repression is a larger apprehension about survival as a people and a state. The discussion repeatedly returned to the fate of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the mass displacement that followed the 2020 conflict, and the symbolism of territorial losses that many perceive as existential wounds. The handing over of parts of Artsakh to Azerbaijani control, and the subsequent refugee flows—tens of thousands displaced—were positioned as evidence that state institutions have failed to defend core national interests. Contributors argued that these territorial and humanitarian crises were not merely the consequences of war but were enabled by policy choices at the highest level—choices that dovetail with the corridor project and the broader geopolitical realignment. The sense that statehood itself is under pressure came through strongly: losing population, control over borders, and the centrality of the church and national memory were all framed as signs that Armenia’s political community is being fragmented. The conversation thus links electoral manipulation and repression directly to existential stakes, portraying them as parts of the same process that has already produced large-scale displacement and diplomatic surrender. ## Threshold trick and recount dispute The mechanics of the election count featured prominently in the discussion as an illustration of procedural manipulation. The narrative describes an early announcement of victory made before a meaningful portion of ballots had been tallied, followed by disruptions to official counting channels—website outages and pauses in processing—that together created a situation where constitutional norms could be bypassed. In the telling offered, this early declaration was not merely premature but strategically intended to freeze institutional adjudication in favor of the incumbent. Participants also laid out a dispute over recounts and thresholds that they perceive as designed to obfuscate rather than clarify. When a central election authority is publicly anticipated to deliver results, external congratulations can be used to seal the outcome irrespective of later legal or procedural challenges. The conversation suggests that the threshold rules and the handling of recounts were weaponized: once a narrative of victory is locked in by diplomatic and media support, subsequent technical disputes become matters of bureaucratic adjustment rather than genuine contestation. In short, the threshold trick converts a close result into an irreversible political fait accompli by combining administrative maneuvers with external legitimation. ## Army voting and list problems 00: 44:01 Why the opposition stayed calm The military vote and the handling of voter lists emerged as a critical, if underplayed, element in the electoral drama. The discussion described irregularities in the ways army personnel were mobilized and how their ballots were processed—measures that one side could exploit in a close contest. Questions about the integrity of service-member voting and the transparency of lists were presented as systemic vulnerabilities that favored the incumbents, who control the coercive apparatus. Yet the conversation also probed the caution of the opposition. Why did it not respond with mass protests or street mobilization? The answer offered emphasizes strategic calculation under repression: with leadership figures arrested or under house arrest, organizational capacity was intentionally degraded. Moreover, the weight of state coercion—threats of pretrial detention for critics, the elimination of campaign org

The Next Ukraine: West Destroys Armenia | H. Ishkhanyan & N. Navasardyan Pascal Lottaz speaks with Armenian dissidents Hovanes Ishkanyan and Nare Navasardian about the latest election in Armenia, claims of rigging, arrests of opposition figures, pressure on the church, and the danger of the Zangezur corridor plan. They also discuss foreign influence, the Artsakh issue, and why they believe Armenia’s statehood is under threat. Links: Aknandakan: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aknandakan/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ Website: www. aknandakan.org Substack: https://substack.com/@aknandakan Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction and guest backgrounds 00: 02:31 Armenia election fraud claims 00:10:45 Foreign backing and early reactions 00:15:44 Corridor plan and regional goals 00:20:40 Bribes, arrests, and repression 00:25:40 Artsakh, refugees, and state threat 00:33:29 Threshold trick and recount dispute 00:38:52 Army voting and list problems 00: 44:01 Why the opposition stayed calm 00:51:59 Final thoughts on Armenia’s future #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies, today with a special episode on Armenia. I am joined by two dissidents from there, Hovhannes Iskanyan and Narek Navasardyan. I hope I pronounced the names correctly. Narek, Hovhannes, welcome. Thank you very much. #Navasardyan Thank you, Pascal Lottaz, for having us. #Pascal Well, thank you for having us here and giving us some updates. And can I maybe just ask you, Narek, maybe first you, can you give us a very brief background of yourself? #Navasardyan Sure. So I studied in America at first. I studied writing and marketing. And upon returning to my home country, Armenia, at first I took up a position with the EU delegation, but that didn't last. And then, following the 2020 war, Hovhannes and I founded an NGO to defend the rights of Armenians, -- 1 of 21 -- because it was clear that there was this big conspiracy against our nation. And since then, we've been working on, you know, recruiting documentary filmmakers, photographers, writers, everybody that was interested in the cause of a sovereign Armenia and the defense of the rights of Armenians. #Pascal Thank you. And Hovhannes, what’s your background? #Ishkhanyan I am a documentary filmmaker and a writer. I did my master's degree in journalism and media management in Georgia, at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs. And now, as Narek said, especially after 2020, when part of Artsakh, the Republic of Artsakh, was handed over because of the war, we started to act, because we knew that we were at risk of ethnic cleansing and genocide. We knew that this government was going to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, and that's when we started to work to try to prevent all the tragedies that were going to happen in our country. #Pascal And Artsakh, you mean the province of Nagorno-Karabakh? #Ishkhanyan Yeah, Nagorno-Karabakh. The legal name is the Republic of Artsakh, as the constitution is written — Republic of Artsakh, yes. #Pascal Okay, and now it's today, Saturday, the 13th of June. Last week on Sunday, you had very important elections in Armenia. Can you give us an update on what you've perceived? Okay, maybe first, what's the official outcome? And then how happy are you with that official outcome? Maybe let's start with Hovhannes and Narek. #Ishkhanyan First of all, we have to understand that the elections were rigged, and it was not rigged on the day of the voting, but it started long before. Especially if we take the program of the Civil Contract, which is the party in power. And if we read the program, we will find there a promise of a xenophobic constitutional violation. So they promised through the program that they are going to violate the Armenian Constitution by force, throwing the Catholicos, the leader of the Church, from -- 2 of 21 -- his position, which is a violation of the 17th article of our Constitution, that the State and the Church are separate. So, for the imagination of the Western audience, we have to understand that we Armenians were obliged to take part in elections that were done by xenophobic ideologies. So, like violating the freedom of conscience and religious freedom. But it also started long before, because they started to fabricate cases against mayors and community leaders—elected mayors who were in opposition. Like in the second city of Armenia, which is Gyumri, the elected mayor was just taken to jail. Another one, in the city of Massis, the mayor was taken to jail because of their opposition. And this was unprecedented—unprecedented elections—because the leader of the opposition was in the campaign while he was arrested. And for state elections, such a thing never happened. And he was, by the way, arrested because when he came to Armenia, he said, “I am going to protect my church.” Because you know that the Church is under attack by this government, in the way I can. So after this, he was arrested. And he was arrested by command on the Facebook of the Prime Minister. Can you imagine? Like, he wrote on Facebook, “Now you will see what is going to happen with you.” And then all the national security, police, and everyone went to the house of Samvel Karapetian, and he was arrested. And now he is under house arrest, so he couldn't speak with citizens and do the campaign properly. But not only him—the fourth party that they are trying now to take out from Parliament. But as we see, they passed Parliament, and now they are trying illegally to throw them back. The second person of this party, the faction, the group coalition, which was the leader of the Meir Hayastan party. He was arrested two weeks before voting day. And he was arrested on the day of his son's graduation. They arrested him because he was the machine of the campaign. And he had succeeded in all the local elections that took place before—in Yerevan, which is the capital, in Gyumri, which is the second city, and in Etchmiadzin, which is one of the biggest cities of Armenia and the spiritual city, because the church center is there. So he succeeded in all of these elections, and they just arrested him two weeks before. And not only him, but they were also arresting people who were the main organizational individuals. They were the machines of organization. So they were paralyzing the work of the parties through this. #Pascal Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. #Ishkhanyan The worst thing that happened, it was like at 2 a.m. at night when only like 10% of the polling stations were processed, like the votes, only 10%, 15%. And this guy, whose name is Nikol -- 3 of 21 -- Pashinyan and who's backed by Europe, he just made a press conference and said that they won the elections. He didn't even wait. He didn't even wait. The counting was stopped at that moment. Like for 30 minutes, for one hour, 30 minutes, the counting was stopped. The page of the electoral committee was down. It was not working. And then he came, he made the press conference, and he said, we won the elections. And just imagine, like, there are 2,005 polling stations, and only like 100- something were just counted. And the way that the counting was going, four parties were like all together. If we add, like, Civil Contract was going down, and these all were going up. And then after this press conference, that usuality was changed. And after that, we understand it's a violation of the constitution because the central committee is the institution that gives the results of the elections. And he came out, and before he came out, the prime minister of Georgia announced, like, congratulated the victory of Nikol Pashinyan when only 1% was counted. Can you imagine? Like, a prime minister of a different country, a neighboring country, doesn't respect our institutions, and he comes out, congratulates the prime minister, and also the ex-president of Georgia, Zurabishvili. So these two, one after another, they congratulated the prime minister when only 1% of the polling stations were counted. #Ishkhanyan So after this announcement that he won the elections, everything should stop because it's a violation of the constitution. And that means the elections are rigged in a brutal way. And we shouldn't believe whatever result they announce later. #Pascal But how is this possible? So on the one hand, we've had all of these arrests before the actual election, and unprecedented, a lot of them, of the opposition first and foremost. Then, of course, also the religious leaders who already for a while, for months, have been arrested and imprisoned. And now also this very obvious irregularity of how the election, the vote, is then being counted or told to everybody. Like, what is this, and why Georgia? Because Georgia actually is on a very different path than Armenia and also has troubles with the West, also with Russia. But why is it that Georgia came out so quickly in congratulating Pashinyan? #Navasardyan It seems to me that Pashinyan was preemptively given a carte blanche by all these outside players to essentially do whatever he needs to do to win the elections. So it's not just Georgia. It's just the way you could see, leading up to the elections, the big EU events that were organized — Macron walking around the streets of Yerevan, talking about how this would be impossible under former administrations that were more centered on Armenian rights and less on the priorities of these -- 4 of 21 -- outside Western actors. So the EU allocated around, I think, two or three million euros for, as they call it, battling disinformation coming from Russia, but essentially doing their own disinformation campaigns completely during these six years. And actually, more than that, we have seen just complete zero reaction from the European actors to anything that has been going on in Armenia. The mayor of Karakash, the elected mayor from the opposition, was shot. There is no reaction. The Egumdi mayor was, as Jovanes mentioned, imprisoned. We see no reaction. As much as writing on Facebook or going on a podcast and saying something against Pashinyan, you're in danger of being detained for two months, you know, pretrial detention. And then maybe they're just wasting your time, they're wasting your resources. So it has gotten increasingly authoritarian, increasingly violent. And this is all we have to, in order to understand these elections, we need to go back to the way the system was established and how it was taken over by Pashinyan. So this system, I believe they changed the constitution in 2015. And the president at the time, Sarkisyan, the system allows for complete control over everything — for, you know, the ruling party, the supermajority. If you have the supermajority, you can essentially do anything that you want, and it was a yes. And in 2017, in the elections, the ruling party at the time, the Republican Party, actually registered similar results. They got 49.7%, and the preliminary results announced by Pashinyan's Central Election Committee were 49.8%. And then a few months afterward, there was this color revolution organized and supported by the West that brought in Pashinyan. And since then, Pashinyan has arranged it so he has full control over the judiciary, over the military, over the police. So in essence, they don't want to give an ounce of power back. In the absence of any external pressures, just the vote count is not enough for them to change their outlook because they see that they can get away with anything. #Pascal And they won.