Destruction of Armenia: NATO's Plans Against Russia and Iran | A. Kachikian & P. Shakarian

## Arthur's Personal Experience with Government Repression What emerges from the conversation is a vivid portrait of what participants describe as an abrupt slide from an emblematic "Velvet Revolution" into a landscape of coercion and fear. The exchange opens with an account of targeted harassment: public denunciations, coordinated media assaults, deactivation of online platforms, and threats of criminal prosecution directed at outspoken critics. These are presented not as isolated incidents but as symptoms of an organized campaign to silence dissent—arrests of religious figures, intimidation of civil-society actors, and alleged manipulation of the judiciary. The conversation treats these moves as more than political rough-and-tumble; they are characterized as instruments of a systematic narrowing of the public square. This testimony has two functions in the discussion. First, it humanizes the cost of political transformation: arrests of clerics, the detention of ordinary citizens including a mother with an infant, and alleged physical attacks on protesters are recounted to show that repression has a tangible human toll. Second, it frames credibility questions about outside supporters: Western officials who celebrate democratic reform while, according to the conversation, applauding or overlooking these repressive measures. The result is a narrative in which domestic repression and external legitimation are intertwined, creating the paradox of democratic rhetoric enabling illiberal practice. ## Pashinyan's Crackdown and Selling Out the Homeland The conversation advances a sharp charge: that the internal repression is being carried out in tandem with foreign-policy concessions that imperil Armenian sovereignty. The critique holds that a leader can behave like a domestic strongman—muzzling opponents and consolidating executive control—while simultaneously acquiescing to regional arrangements that, in the view of the discussants, strip Armenia of strategic depth and territorial integrity. The two phenomena are presented as complementary rather than contradictory: a domestically repressive posture pacifies dissent at home, enabling the rapid accommodation of external demands. A central claim is that concessions over Nagorno-Karabakh and the creation of a corridor through Syunik/Zangezur signal a longer-term process of strategic exposure. The conversation foresees a domino effect: once transport and energy routes bypass Armenia, political leverage shifts decisively toward Azerbaijan and Turkey. That, in turn, would leave Armenia isolated from traditional partners and make it vulnerable to a narrative advanced by its neighbors that Armenian territory is anachronistic or extraterritorial. The debate implies that what may look like pragmatic accommodation is actually a sale of strategic options—trading defense in depth for short-term diplomatic credit. ## Pashinyan's Election and Treaty Ratification The participants scrutinize the legitimacy and consequences of electoral victory and subsequent treaty-making. The discussion questions whether the political mandate that brought the current leadership to power translates into a mandate for deep strategic reorientation. In particular, the conversation centers on a series of diplomatic moves—high-profile recognitions, accord signings, and corridor agreements—that were signed off under intense international pressure. Those moves are portrayed as executed without sufficient consultation, without meaningful security guarantees for affected populations, and in moments when domestic institutions were already weakened. More broadly, the conversation reads these treaties as not merely bilateral arrangements but as instruments in a wider great-power chess game. Treaty ratification is interpreted here as a moment when Armenian sovereignty becomes transactional: concessions are made to satisfy external actors seeking to reshape the regional order. The skeptics in the exchange argue that treaties arrived at under duress—backed by the diplomatic weight of major powers—risk hollowing out the very state they purport to secure, especially if the domestic social contract has been broken through repression. ## Background of Pashinyan's Rise to Power The dialogue revisits the trajectory that led to the current leadership, asking whether an initially popular movement masked longer-term trajectories. The conversation recalls the roots of the movement in late-1980s mass mobilization around Nagorno-Karabakh, tying modern political ascendance to that legacy of self-determination and civic activism. Against that backdrop, the discussants argue that the leader’s ascent was built on a demand for responsiveness and moral clarity—expectations that, in their telling, have been undermined by later foreign-policy decisions. There is also a persistent theme about external engineering. The exchange emphasizes the role of international actors and resources in shaping domestic media ecosystems, political training, and civil-society networks. The contention is not simply that external actors favored one political personality but that systematic infusion of funds and expertise can reshape political incentives, cultivate compliant elites, and create dependencies that leave local politics vulnerable to being redirected toward geopolitical aims. From this vantage, the revolution’s social energy was repurposed into a conduit for external strategic priorities, producing a leadership that would later enact policies foreign to its original constituency’s expectations. ## Pashinyan's Political Background and Electoral Base The conversation distinguishes between the leader’s populist appeal and the structural limits of his electoral base. Several points recur: that electoral victories rested on a coalition of urban civic activists and media-savvy constituencies, that rural and border communities have distinct security perspectives, and that the political mobilization which swept the leader into office did not translate into durable institutional support across the country. The result, according to the discussants, is a misalignment between political promises and governance capacities. That misalignment is said to explain why a leader can behave as an assertive domestic autocrat toward political opponents while being unusually pliant abroad. The electoral calculus is simple in this reading: the urban core that propelled the leader to power is disproportionately insulated from the immediate security implications of territorial concessions; it rewards bold narratives of reform and anti-corruption while remaining less sensitive to strategic recalibrations. Conversely, communities in the south and along border regions experience the consequences of corridor projects and territorial concessions directly. The conversation suggests that without a broad-based social pact, leaders face perverse incentives: consolidate power to fend off domestic challengers while trading away contested strategic assets in hopes of placating external patrons. ## Final Thoughts and Outlook for Armenia The exchange closes on a sober and urgent note: Armenia stands at a crossroads where domestic repression, external engineering, and regional reordering converge. The participants forecast a high-risk scenario in which Armenia becomes territorially and strategically enmeshed in a corridor project that redraws regional lines of control—opening the south Caucasus to greater Turkish and Azerbaijani influence and compressing the space for Russian and Iranian strategic depth. In that context, the conversation warns that statehood itself could be imperiled if political legitimacy continues to erode at home while geostrategic concessions accumulate. Yet the discussion is not fatalistic in every register. Several interlocutors point to remaining levers of resistance: public opinion in the south, diaspora engagement, and the possibility that Russia and Iran have not yet exhausted th

Destruction of Armenia: NATO's Plans Against Russia and Iran The situation in Armenia is alarming, where a self-proclaimed democratic leader is enacting Stalinist- style repressions, arresting archbishops, and silencing opposition. How can a "Velvet Revolution" so quickly turn into an autocratic nightmare, and why is the West, known for championing human rights, not only silent but actively supportive of this crackdown? Today I’m talking to Arthur Katchikian a political scientist and IR Scholars and Pietro Shakarian a lecturer of history at the american university in Yerevan. Today we discuss the alleged Western-engineered rise of Prime Minister Pashinyan, who is now accused of selling out the Armenian homeland, and how Armenia is now at risk of losing its statehood. Links: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack. com Goods Store: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Preview & Introduction 00:01:29 - Arthur's Personal Experience with Government Repression 00:06:14 - Western Hypocrisy and Support for Armenian Government 00:12:40 - Pashinyan's Crackdown and Selling Out the Homeland 00:22:07 - How the Power Balance in the Region Shifted 00:30:40 - Pashinyan's Election and Treaty Ratification 00:35:00 - Demands for Changes to the Armenian Constitution 00:39:35 - Background of Pashinyan's Rise to Power 00:40:53 - Legitimacy of Previous Armenian Government 00:46:26 - Pashinyan's Political Background and Electoral Base 00:53:10 - How Pashinyan Maintains Parliamentary Power 00:59:59 - Final Thoughts and Outlook for Armenia #M3 What we see here is a sphere of influence war between great powers. What happened is that Armenia conceded this corridor, so Turkey and Azerbaijan can now join. It is my conviction that in the future they will be able to gradually take over the rest of Armenia, because Azerbaijan is saying, "You are Western Azerbaijan, so you don't really belong here anyway." So this is a major win for Azerbaijan, Turkey, Israel, and the United States. And this is a major blow to Iran and Russia. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Arthur Katchikian, a political scientist and IR scholar, and Pietro Shakarian, a lecturer of history at the American University in Yerevan. Both of them are Armenian, and both of them have a long history of studying their country, the United States, and global politics. So what's currently going on with Armenia is what we want to discuss today. Pietro, Arthur, welcome. #M3 Pascal, it's wonderful to be on the show again. -- 1 of 22 -- #M1 Thank you. And it's great to be with Arthur, as always. #M2 I've had you both on my channel before separately, and I really wanted to get your insight because a lot has happened in Armenia now, right? And Arthur, you were directly impacted by the recent, very autocratic, totalitarian methods of the Armenian government. Can you maybe fill us in on what happened to you in the last couple of weeks? #M3 Well, I'll give you a few highlights and then hand it over to Pietro. If you guys want to ask more questions, we can go into it. Basically, Armenia is now going through a period of Stalinist-style repression and terror. We have arbitrary detentions and arrests, and open threats from the so-called democratically elected leader of a democratic revolution—supported, by the way, by the West. He recently said, "The government is me." I think he sees himself as Louis XIV. He said, "I will annihilate the opposition." He actually said that: "I will cut their tongues off." The West is just watching, doing nothing—and supporting him, by the way. Macron said this is being done in a quest for democracy. This is a quest for democracy? He's doing this to strengthen democracy? It's really nauseating. So basically, we have mass arrests and political prisoners now. Two of our archbishops were arrested for saying certain things years ago that were completely taken out of context and manipulated. We had a businessman arrested— all he said was, "We will support our church our own way." And they interpreted that as a call to violence and arrested him. The courts have been turned into a joke. There basically is no justice; there's just the will of this leader, of this gang, who said recently, "There is no judge in Armenia who will dare disobey me." So basically, anyone who tries to speak up is being shut down, arrested, or intimidated—including your humble servant. I was massively attacked by the pro-government journalists. One day, they just staged this massive attack; it was like Pearl Harbor. Then they shut down my Facebook page and threatened to press criminal charges against me. And all of this is done by the so-called free media, sponsored by the so-called Democratic West. Tens of millions of dollars were pouring into Armenia precisely for this purpose. Hundreds of journalists were trained to support democracy and human rights. And this is what they're doing now: participating in a Stalin-style repression campaign. This is my bit, and I'll hand it over to my esteemed colleague. #M1 -- 2 of 22 -- I think Arthur is 100% on point. What we are seeing today is effectively a revival of the kind of mass political repression we saw in the 1930s in Armenia, when Lavrentiy Beria, who was the leader of Soviet Georgia, installed his cronies, Amatuni Amatuni and Hachik Mokhtusi, in Armenia to launch these terrible repressions against people like the poet Yeghishe Charents and Axel Bakunts and others. And that's what we're seeing—we're seeing a revival of that and really fundamentally anti- democratic behavior on the part of this government. And, I mean, it's par for the course, because this government has effectively betrayed democracy. I mean, if we go back to the whole history of the Karabakh movement, the Artsakh movement of the late 1980s, the epicenter of that movement was the self-determination and democratic rights of the Artsakh Armenians. By this government recognizing—and this prime minister recognizing—Nagorno- Karabakh, Artsakh, as a part of Azerbaijan, he betrayed the democratic rights of those people. He betrayed the democratic core of the Karabakh movement. So what we're seeing now is a natural continuation of this. This is just a natural kind of continuation of this movement toward anti- democratic behavior. And, you know, I mean, also, not only that—I mean, there was this massive attack on Arthur—but in addition, even Pashinyan, one of his MPs in the parliament, publicly denounced Arthur and also another esteemed scholar, Armin Gregorian. And, I mean, it's just terrible what we're seeing right now. And it's, you know, Pascal, what's amazing about this is that this is all being sponsored by the so- called democratic EU, which, as we know, is not democratic at all. And it's kind of going full circle. I mean, its behavior is Soviet, and not necessarily—I mean, not in the—because, again, with the Soviet Union, there are positives and negatives—but in the Soviet and negative sense. I mean, when you have a daughter of a Soviet apparatchik calling the shots in the EU's foreign policy, that tells you everything. So we are moving toward a reality that is rather dark for Armenia and for the region. #M2 Let me just interject here, because our listeners need to know—I mean, Arthur, you are not on the front line as a politician, but you are an influential and well-known IR scholar, and someone who has been involved in Armenian IR for years, right? And then you were actually outside of the country when this crackdown happened and these priests of the church got arrested. The reason they got arrested is because the church actually holds political importance in Armenia, as it's such an important institution. And the very next day, or two days later, Kaja Kallas was actually in Yerevan, praising the democratic values of Yerevan and Armenia being part of the West and part of liberal Europe. Can you speak to this nonsense for just one second, for people who still have a brain left to think about this? #M3 -- 3 of 22 -- The West has lost all credibility. The West has lost all credibility. And the notion of democracy has lost all credibility because we can see how easy it is to hijack a country, especially a country as poor and small and not very significant in international politics as Armenia. It's very easy to hijack it by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into that country, by sponsoring and then seizing the local media, by training local journalists—hundreds and hundreds of them. You basically turn this country into your colony. It's an informational annexation. You annex the country informationally. So you basically start managing this country. You have it at your fingertips because you use your money, your wealth, to completely seize control of the media and public opinion, and you can easily manipulate it. So basically, this is the end of democracy for me. I mean, I can see it. You know, we talked about this before. I was a big believer in liberal ideas and a great supporter of Western democracy. But now it basically just went like that—it just popped in front of my eyes. It is so shameful for a representative of Europe to come to Armenia and say that this is done in an effort to promote democratic reforms. Massive repressions. And it's so shameful for the so-called French president. France is a country I love. It deserves a better president. To say that this is done, again, to strengthen democracy in Armenia as people are being beaten up—there are bombs thrown at them, peaceful demonstrators, young people being choked for carrying a flag of their own country. A woman was arrested—Pietro will correct me—a woman was arrested with a baby who was eight months old, and they dragged her to jail. And then Kallis comes there and gives us a lecture on democracy. You know, I used to think that there is a link. Go ahead. #M1 I want to interject something too, Arthur. I mean, there was also the famous case here in Armenia— and Arthur can speak to this—where we had this young woman, Manasseh Kanyan, and she was pregnant, actually, and she was hit by Pashinyan's motorcade. #M3 You know, they didn't even stop. Didn't even stop. No one stopped. In the US, they would be sued. And in Europe, they would be in court for not helping a person who was dying and needed their help. And here you have all these so-called free media—Radio Free Europe, the state television, the so-called civil society, hundreds of NGOs. And they all remain quiet. They are all completely quiet. This is the end of democracy. This is the end of the West. They have completely discredited themselves. And I am so glad that finally we have another center of power forming in Shanghai that's going to balance this unseemly, this unspeakable orgy of lies and hypocrisy and aggression. And I am just really, really tired of it all. #M1 -- 4 of 22 -- Well, I think it's also—I mean, we talk about another center of power developing. I mean, we talk about Beijing, we talk about China, but it's not only that. Actually, what we're talking about is really kind of a multilateral, multipolar world order. So it's not even just necessarily one center specifically. You also have Moscow, you have Tehran, and that actually is what real democracy is all about. It's real democracy if we talk about international politics. Real democracy is hearing multiple voices from all these states. It's not about the diktat of Kaja Kallas or the diktat of the EU. It should be about the sovereign decisions of all these different countries. That's the fundamental of democracy. And I think, unfortunately, what we have really is raw great power politics. And that's what we're seeing now: the EU is acting as an appendage of the U.S.— maybe imperial interests, we can say—in the Caucasus, to create that middle corridor to get the energy riches of Central Asia and so on and so forth. So it has nothing to do with democracy