Pashinyan to separatists: “You fled Karabakh”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has dismissed claims that forces in Karabakh “fought to the end,” calling such statements a myth.

Speaking to journalists on March 26, Pashinyan said that following the 2023 events in Karabakh, Armenia’s Security Council reviewed the outcome of the hostilities and concluded that assertions of prolonged resistance “do not correspond to reality,” Caliber.Az reports, citing Armenian media.

According to the prime minister, intelligence data indicate that the vast majority of weapons—around 80–90%—remained unused. “If necessary, we will declassify this data. I will decide at the right time to publish everything. It’s a lie—there was no such thing; they fled,” Pashinyan stated.

He further claimed that during the 44-day war, certain actors also “fled” as part of a plan to portray the situation as a betrayal by Armenia’s authorities and to use it as grounds for a change of power.

Pashinyan added that Armenian authorities had created conditions for a political process, but representatives of the illegal junta in Karabakh not only obstructed it but also carried out a change of power, despite warnings.

“Within a week, what happened, happened. What they did in Karabakh, they later intended to do in Armenia,” he said.

The prime minister also accused some individuals, now active in Armenia’s political sphere, of having “literally fled” Karabakh while blaming the authorities for allegedly closing the border. He noted that he had warned Karabakh representatives that once they left, they would not be able to return.