Yerevan motive

Yerevan Motive

At an expanded meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan explained to his colleagues why holding a referendum on the choice between the EAEU and the EU is impossible.

According to Pashinyan, as quoted by Sputnik Armenia, "We understand that simultaneous membership in the EAEU and the EU is unrealistic, but the very fact of adopting a law on the EU accession process means that Armenia has the opportunity to become a member of the European Union. When Yerevan is ready for EU membership in the future, this does not guarantee automatic accession. This will require the consent of EU member states and the citizens of Armenia. On the other hand, bringing this issue to the attention of Armenian citizens is impossible without preliminary institutional work, and even then, an official application for EU accession will need to be submitted. Then, candidate status for EU membership will need to be obtained."

He emphasized that current relations between Armenia and the European Union do not contain economic, legal, or political obligations that would conflict with the status of relations within the EAEU. The Prime Minister also noted that strengthening cooperation with other EAEU members remains a foreign policy and economic priority for Armenia.

Pashinyan expressed gratitude to his colleagues in the Eurasian Union for recognizing Armenia's legitimate right – like any other EAEU country – to develop relations with various partners and create trade and economic alternatives for its country. Moreover, the Armenian Prime Minister added, this approach is beneficial for the EAEU, as the availability of possible alternatives contributes to its competitiveness and attractiveness.

The political balancing act demonstrated by the Armenian Prime Minister before his EAEU colleagues prompts a study of the political biography of Armenia's current leader, who assumed leadership of the country at a turning point in its modern history. Our Editorial Team, based on MK journalist Mikhail Rostovsky's article "Prime Minister Pashinyan's Grand Gambit: How Defeated Armenia Can Break Free from the Tight Grip of a Trap," has prepared a political portrait of the current head of the Armenian government, who has concentrated virtually all power in the country in his hands.

Nikol Pashinyan's first appearance on the Armenian political scene was quite dramatic, but at the time, his career prospects seemed bleak. After the official tally of the 2008 presidential election results, it was announced that Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first head of post-Soviet Armenia, had lost to the ruling party candidate by a landslide, garnering only a fifth of the vote.

Enraged, Ter-Petrosyan felt he had been "robbed of victory" and, as often happens in states with unstable political systems, decided to "return what was stolen" through the methods of "marketplace democracy." The man who led the attempted coup on behalf of the former president was journalist Nikol Pashinyan, a member of Ter-Petrosyan's campaign staff and known for his "sensational revelations."

Here's how former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan described the incident in his book "Life and Freedom," published in 2019: "Nikol Pashinyan calls on the agitated crowd to resist the police's entreaties. He shouts, 'No, we're not going anywhere! We're staying here, barricading ourselves!' The police continue to try to persuade the crowd: 'How can this be, brothers! We agreed!' ... Nikol Pashinyan remains in control of the crowd, calling himself Ter-Petrosyan's chief representative and, citing his orders, orders everyone to remain in the square near the embassy, build barricades, and resist law enforcement with whatever means they have."

Under the influence of such calls, the situation quickly moved beyond the "velvet revolution" stage: "The protesters readily responded to his words and took action: they seized and burned two police UAZ vehicles, beating the officers themselves and stealing their service weapons. They then attacked a fire truck arriving at the burning UAZ vehicles. They attacked a police officer guarding the entrance to City Hall. Armen Martirosyan, a deputy from the Heritage Party who came to his defense, was stabbed."

After this, the constitutional authorities decided to take control of the situation: "When internal troops, using shields and batons, attempted to push the gathered crowd away from City Hall to clear the blocked entrance, they encountered fierce resistance. The protesters were armed not only with pipes and rebar... Grenades, explosive devices, and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the police. An internal troops captain was fatally wounded by the explosion of one of the grenades."

As John Harington, the inventor of the world's first flush toilet and court poet to Queen Elizabeth I of England, noted back in the 16th century: "A rebellion cannot succeed. Otherwise, it will be called something else." But for Nikol Pashinyan, the rebellion he staged did succeed. He failed to overthrow the government in Yerevan in 2008. However, he gained "valuable experience" and, instead of facing the full punishment, got off with a pat on the head.

Again, a quote from Robert Kocharyan's book: "The main protagonist of the unrest at City Hall, Nikol Pashinyan, managed to escape. He was placed on an international wanted list, presumed to have fled Armenia. But it turned out that Pashinyan hadn't left, but had been hiding in someone's apartment in Yerevan for over a year. Then, apparently, he grew tired of hiding and turned himself in. Perhaps they promised him a minimum sentence and then early release. And that's what happened."

This "mercy of nature" could not help but make Nikol Pashinyan yearn to try again to seize power – this time not for the "stranger" Ter-Petrosyan, but for himself. And at the next turn of Armenian politics in 2018, he satisfied this desire. By then a member of parliament, Pashinyan was better prepared, learned from his previous mistakes, came up with catchy slogans—and power essentially fell into his lap like an overripe apple.

In 2020 and 2023, Armenia, under Nikol Pashinyan's leadership, lost two consecutive wars with Azerbaijan, resulting in the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the Armenian Prime Minister managed to retain power. The question arises: how and why was this possible? The slogan of "Miatsuma" ("reunification" with Nagorno-Karabakh) had been Armenia's main, if not its only, national idea for over three decades.

Before the defeat in the war, Nikol Pashinyan publicly spoke as a fervent apologist for this idea. Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan's statement during a speech in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, in August 2019: "Artsakh (the Armenian name for the region) is Armenia. Period!" The Armenian Prime Minister's address to the nation after the outbreak of hostilities with Azerbaijan in October 2020: "We must all be ready to dedicate ourselves to a single mission, which we call final victory. Each of us must be ready to be at the forefront of this victory. We will win! We will definitely win! Rest assured: victory will be ours!"

The confidence in "Armenia's final victory" turned out to be a mirage. But Nikol Pashinyan personally has clearly won, in terms of preserving his career and his political survival. The son of a simple physical education teacher from the provincial Armenian town of Ijevan, with a population of less than 20,000, has proven to be a more skilled and resourceful political player. There is clearly some phenomenon behind this that needs to be studied and understood.

The Secret of Prime Minister Pashinyan's Survival

In the book "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan in War and Peace" by renowned British Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal, he recounts the following account by Yerevan schoolteacher Ashot Manucharyan, who later became a political activist, of the emotional backdrop of the mass rallies for the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh that engulfed the Armenian capital in February 1988:

"The atmosphere is a very attractive phenomenon. People began to sense something new—that it had become possible to express their opinions, to gather, to talk about the fate of Karabakh... An atmosphere was created that became fantastic. When I say the situation became fantastic, I mean its similarity to the situation when the Pope addresses the faithful, the true believers, in St. Peter's Square... It was something very close to that.

Everyone loved everyone else. It was an atmosphere of absolute warmth. If something happened to someone, the entire square supported that person. Doctors were quickly brought. Strong men acted as porters. Some brought medicine, others – water." Trying to find an even more precise wording to describe the atmosphere of the protests of those days, Ashot Manucharyan settled on the following: "a magnetic field that sucked everyone in."

One of the very few people in Yerevan who refused to succumb to the influence of this political "magnetic field" was long-time party leader of Armenia Karen Demirchyan. Demirchyan had held his position since 1974 and enjoyed enormous authority in the republic. However, as Robert Kocharyan recounts in his book, all this authority dissolved in literally a few seconds:

"At one of these thousands-strong rallies on Theater Square in Yerevan, Demirchyan suddenly arrived to speak and calm the crowd. But when the crowd began chanting, 'Karabakh! Karabakh!'" Demirchyan snapped irritably: "What are you all talking about – Karabakh, Karabakh? Do I have Karabakh in my pocket or something, so I can just take it out and give it to you?" This catastrophic mistake, which only fueled the mass protests, cost him his job. Demirchyan was removed with the explanation "for health reasons."

But did the First Secretary of the Central Committee really make a "catastrophic mistake" by saying what he did? From the perspective of the substantive content of the policy, it's far from certain. From 1988 to 2023, all of Armenia's energy and resources were directed toward "miatsum." For the sake of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia sacrificed everything, enduring several decades of harsh blockade by several of its neighbors. But all these sacrifices proved in vain.

At the time the "magnetic field" appeared on Theater Square in Yerevan, Karabakh was predominantly Armenian in terms of its population. Statistics as of 1989: 145,000 Armenians, 40,000 Azerbaijanis. Today, there are no Armenians at all in the same territory. Karen Demirchyan's prediction made in 1988 has come true in the most dramatic and radical way imaginable. But the experienced The Armenian party leader completely overlooked the emotional component of politics.

The great Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky coined another brilliant aphorism: "Usually, people marry hopes and get married to promises." And since it's much easier to fulfill your promises than to meet other people's expectations, you encounter disappointed husbands more often than deceived wives." I'm not sure this "wisdom in a humorous wrapper" has any real relevance to family life. But it certainly has a direct bearing on the informal norms and rules of functioning of large human communities.

When large masses of people are in a state of emotional tension, they are not ready to speak the "language" of rational arguments. These rational arguments may be absolutely correct and fair. But if they go "against the tide," the only response will be irritation, rejection, anger, and aggression. A political leader who possesses well-developed intuition and what psychologists call "emotional intelligence" understands well: trying to "fight the tide" is dooming oneself to political suicide.

Instead, one must try to ride the tide and use it to one's advantage. This, in my opinion, is precisely where And herein lies Nikol Pashinyan's main political secret. As Yerevan political insiders well know, the Armenian Prime Minister can hardly be called a political manager or administrator. Pashinyan is burdened by the details and nuances of day-to-day governance. All these responsibilities have long been de facto delegated to one of Nikol Pashinyan's two deputies in the government.

Mher Grigoryan, a law graduate from Moscow State University who has held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia since Pashinyan came to power in Yerevan in the spring of 2018, is considered a figure devoid of political ambitions, yet he effectively fulfills the substantive duties of the head of government. As for Pashinyan himself, it is sometimes difficult to convince him even to sign government decrees on time.

What he truly enjoys is expressing himself on social media or discussing various topics with members of his own parliamentary faction. Pashinyan also cannot be considered a person with a fundamental education or a deep knowledge of Russia, other foreign countries, or anything else. The realities of international life.

But all of Nikol Pashinyan's weaknesses and political blind spots are more than compensated for by other qualities—the very same ones that Karen Demirchyan lacked in the fateful year of 1988. Having risen to the very top of Armenian society from the very bottom, Pashinyan is a passionate individual with a highly developed charisma and a highly developed intuition. While lacking formal "bookish" knowledge, the Prime Minister instinctively understands the Armenian mentality and national character very well.

In Pashinyan's capable hands, this mentality and character are transformed into the political equivalent of a "Stradivarius violin." The Prime Minister knows exactly what and how to say at a given moment in time to "hit the beat" with the expectations of his domestic political audience.

It's also worth mentioning, of course, that Pashinyan combines this talent with the ability to construct and competently execute to control the repressive apparatus of force. The current Armenian prime minister began his political career while still a schoolboy. Born in 1975, young Nikol Pashinyan fought for "miatsum" in 1988, organizing "school strikes, marches, and demonstrations." But in the current era of Pashinyan's tenure at the top of the political pyramid in Yerevan, potential "troublemakers" among "politically concerned" schoolchildren have very little prospects.

According to experts in the Armenian political underworld, every school in the capital has its own supervisor from among security officials. And this isn't just a formal supervision, but a supervision with a "finger on the pulse" on a weekly basis. Pashinyan doesn't seek to "love his enemy." Instead, the prime minister harshly attacks those who oppose him—or who might oppose him in the future.

The main guarantee of Nikol Pashinyan's political survival was His instinctive, deep understanding of Armenian society remains. After more than three decades of fighting for Karabakh, after two wars lost under his leadership, Pashinyan realized that this society was tired, that it thirsted not for revenge, not for a continuation of the struggle, not for a mythical revenge, but for peace and normalcy.

Realizing this, the Prime Minister put forward the idea of "Real Armenia"—an idea whose essence Pashinyan himself formulated in his address to the nation in February 2025: "Real Armenia is the Republic of Armenia with an internationally recognized territory of 29,743 square kilometers."

Describing the "ideology of Real Armenia" further in this address, Pashinyan included much more, including, for example, "Armenian cuisine, all those examples of tangible and intangible heritage that express, depict, describe, or symbolize the aforementioned national values of the Armenian people (the Republic of Armenia)."

But the main point was still stated in the opening lines of his speech, quoted above. Prime Minister. And these, by the way, are quite good lines. Another thing is that, in terms of practical politics, the idea of "Real Armenia" can be interpreted in completely different ways. Depending on the chosen interpretation, this idea could lead Armenia to escape the political trap in which it still finds itself. Or it could lead to a new, even more terrible national catastrophe.