Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello everyone. This is Groong’s Week in Review for May 31, 2026. So last week was First Republic Independence Day. Happy May 28.
What did you see on that day? What were your thoughts?
Hovik: Well, I mean, we obviously saw the You know two alternate realities one was this military parade and the other one was all the national forces were attending Yerablur cemetery paying their respects to those that have given you know their lives for the country so On this occasion, I’d like to also congratulate our listeners. May 28 is truly a pivotal day and pivotal moment for Armenia. The battles that Armenia fought against the Turkish army, which was much bigger and much better equipped. It’s an interesting situation, right?
If you think about the Mentality of the leadership at the time in those days Armenia was basically poverty-stricken, disease was killing a lot of people everyone was poor and no one was saying you know what Let’s just think about our good lives and if we just surrender then we will be at least we will be happy and or whatever, you know, we’ll operate motels for the Turkish trucks driving through our territory.
So it’s a nice example of an alternative that Armenia has had in the past and we truly I think should celebrate this holiday more and I’m glad that at least the national forces I mean it has always been one of the most I guess touchstone holidays in Armenia until 2018 and onwards you know so
Asbed: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, Hovik, as a diaspora, I can tell you that Mayis 28 was Independence Day. Throughout my life, it’s been Mayis 28. And like you said, it was the resistance movements that were put up by the folks who essentially survived the genocide and ended up in modern Armenia, today’s Armenia, as refugees, as escapees.
And there was a government that barely survived and made any
Hovik: And I know that many diasporans cherish this holiday, which they should, but in reality it was also the reason for Armenia to exist today. So the reason that we have even what Nikol claims to be like this 29,000 square kilometers is because of May 28 and the heroism of the leadership and also of course the people who fought.
Asbed: Right. Well, the funny thing is about Nikol, he had an accountability parade on Mayis 28. It’s kind of funny to me that he decided to do it in May, on May 28 rather than September 21st. Why was that?
Well, I mean, it’s election.
Hovik: Of course. It’s election and he’s trying to sort of hit back that he’s not a Capitulant. But what’s funny is that during the parade, both Pashinyan and Suren Papikyan both essentially begged or asked Azerbaijan not to interpret the parade in the wrong way. It’s not a show of militarism, which was very interesting in and of itself.
Yeah.
Asbed: Yeah. So I watched the parade and then there were a whole bunch of segments that were put out by Armenpress and I watched many of those. To be honest, I found the two-and-a-half-hour affair really tedious and kind of But there were moments during this parade that were kind of interesting. I really enjoyed seeing servicemen.
I was really entertained by the synchronized drills. They’re always fun to watch and they’ve had some great visuals this year when they started. You stood, for example, in circles and one action like moving your rifle away from your body and it goes around the circle and then you move it back in and comes around the circle. I thought the visuals were great.
Kudos to our servicemen. But as far as the weaponry goes, I think I wrote on the Groong group a couple of things, a couple of my thoughts. The inventory was rather boring. And those Boston Dynamics dog-like robots, the four-legged drones that they displayed, I think maybe instead of bolting them on top of a Zhiguli or a Volkswagen bus or something like that, they should have actually had them trot through the Republic Square.
What did you think?
Hovik: I didn’t watch it, and I’m happy I didn’t watch it. I think that it is all a psyop and a show, and I have nothing to be happy for.
We lost our homeland, Asbed, and I think that this parade, I’m all for a strong military but we know that that is not Pashinyan’s game and I’m not criticizing you for watching it but I think that if we buy into that narrative then yes you know we have to bow our heads to our military but we have to understand that this is a military that is led by capitulationist leadership who Essentially controls the military right they would sooner turn their guns on the people of Armenia than on the real enemies of Armenia and as a sign of protest maybe and as it just to not irritate myself any more than I have to I didn’t watch it but
Asbed: I don’t think we are disagreeing a whole lot. I really can’t fault servicemen. I can’t fault the soldiers as much as maybe you are thinking. The leadership is crap, but I had to watch this because, as you know, the whole national debt issue is one of my pet peeves.
Nikol Pashinyan has been saying that, oh, he ballooned the national debt because he spent it on replenishing the weaponry. And I want to see, well, okay, is there $8 billion of weaponry or any kind of a show for what’s going on here? You know, what did you see? I don’t know.
Hovik: It’s obvious that he’s not going to display all of Armenia’s arsenal in the Republic Square, right?
Asbed: So it’s just… No, no, I didn’t expect $8 billion through the Republic Square.
Hovik: But if you can’t prove that, then his claim that I spent $8 billion… I mean, it’s reasonable. Armenia’s military budget is $1.5 billion a year. So he said that since 2022 he spent 8 billion I guess if you just look at the budget numbers it adds up but not all of it was spent on the weaponry and you know we can talk about the quality of the weaponry we can talk about the compatibility of the weaponry with
Asbed: Well, look, neither of us is a military expert and we can probably find somebody to talk to and if we care, but you obviously have said this is not the issue that we need to beat on. But, Hovik, I think that Pashinyan, the point that I want to make is that Pashinyan is lying to somebody. He’s either lying to the people saying that he spent national debt on weaponry or he has lied to, let’s say, all these Asian development banks or IMFs or World Banks telling them, oh, I’m going to build bridges and tunnels and stuff like that. And he went and spent it on weaponry.
Who is he lying to? And I didn’t see the weaponry that I wanted to see.
Hovik: Yeah, much of that $8 billion in debt was accumulated also before 2022 during his first four years in power. So, I mean, it’s just disingenuous and most, I mean, all normal regular analysts would probably agree with us. I’ve seen no objection to it other than Civil Contract people. But look, I think Armenia should improve its weapons acquisitions.
I think that some of the choices are questionable. We’ve talked about it ad nauseum, but what are you going to do with French weapons if there is a war? How are you going to replenish them? At least with Russia, I mean, with Russian systems, you have Iran through which Russia could fly in stuff through.
You have an open arrangement. With French weaponry, we don’t even have that. I’m not saying we should only exclusively buy Russian weaponry we saw some Iranian anti-drone equipment and but again none of this can be trusted how many did they buy that of course is secret but it’s you know you can spend a couple million dollars on just getting some samples and driving them around Republic Square and claim
Asbed: No amount of weaponry is going to help a leadership that apologizes to the enemy for a military parade and hasn’t done a single military drill in the last five years that I know of. And Azerbaijan and Turkey cooperate almost on a monthly basis to have military drills that practice attacking Armenia and taking over Syunik.
Hovik: We’re getting to the point where even those armed units that have had experience from the war that have had regular military drills in the past or training exercises, especially at a corps level. Right. I mean, none of that. The only thing we’ve seen is like isolated, like 30, 40, 50 people, 100 people exercises.
And you have not had any exercise at a full corps level. And we’re getting to a dangerous point where the army doesn’t know how to fight anymore that is the core issue that is that was being masked in this parade going back to the weaponry it was funny that all the foreign weaponry had Armenian names on it so they took all the like Iranian you know they named one of them Shant one of them fancy Armenian names based on ancient like pagan gods or whatever but it’s Rebranded Indian weapon. Why would you name it?
Anyway, I guess that’s I don’t know if that’s practice, but it was funny hearing like them announce these weapons with Armenian names on it. Look, the the bottom line for this parade was that it will please the eyes of some who and of course, most people are not obligated to understand Military Affairs or to follow the news as closely as we do but those who just follow it superficially or those with kids who were around that day may have found that very entertaining but to me it was a symbol of our capitulation that we’re essentially a capitulationist leader who has brought us three wars and all of them he has lost
Asbed: Disastrous losses, catastrophic losses.
Hovik: Is now celebrating those losses in a military parade and saying that he has brought us real Armenia.
Asbed: And has the nerve to run for office again.
Hovik: Yeah.
Asbed: Hovik, let’s not spend more time on the parade than the parade was long enough. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the sudden Marco Rubio visit on May 26 to Yerevan because this thing yielded a few documents. I think whatever our views are on the value of this visit and the outcomes, we probably should discuss the documents a little bit. They could have effects on Armenia.
Hovik: I know you have done a deep dive into the documents, and I’ll share whatever I have.
Asbed: Yeah, we don’t have to dive as deeply as what I’ve written for ourselves, but we’ll put them in the show notes. We’re certainly going to put them in the show notes.
Hovik: But just imagine the imagery. Rubio is in India. He comes into Zvartnots. 40 minutes later, he’s out of the country. He didn’t even drive to Yerevan.
They signed it in Zvartnots. They had a short signing ceremony and a few questions and he’s out. Deserving 40 minutes of the U.S. Secretary of State is still a lot.
In comparison, how many times has Rubio been to Ukraine or other countries?
Asbed: Well, the last time Secretary of State was in Armenia was Hillary Clinton 14 years ago. So it’s regardless of anything. It’s kind of a momentous event. It doesn’t happen very often.
Okay, but there were three documents that resulted. There was a TRIPP framework, there was a minerals memorandum, and a strategic partnership charter. These things essentially have aligned Armenia with the U.S. connectivity and security goals. The domestic implications, are up to anyone to interpret.
We don’t know exactly what it means to Armenia because I didn’t find a whole lot of security guarantees or even revenue guarantees.
Hovik: Well, actually, then you know what it means because there are no security guarantees.
Asbed: Yes, it’s true. You know, it’s true. We do know exactly what it means. There’s a lot of uncertainty in these documents.
Sorry. Let’s talk a little bit about the minerals document. It’s an MOU, it’s a Memorandum of Understanding. It outlines a framework for mining and supply chain security, stating that both sides intend to support.
So it’s really not an agreement quite yet. It’s an intent to support.
Hovik: It’s a non-binding. The U.S. can leave anytime or the U.S. doesn’t have to do anything about it.
Asbed: So it does say that it’s an intent for raw and processed materials for their respective industries. However, while the text mentions value-added processing and refining for Armenia, there’s absolutely no agreement that says it’s going to happen in Armenia. And I think this is kind of an important thing because since the framework is non-binding, and creates no legal obligations. The U.S. can just discontinue participation in this and leaves Armenia without any kind of guaranteed investment and defense support.
So Armenia risks everything as a mere resource platform bearing the environmental costs and issues that will follow. And, you know, other people will capture the industrial value here.
Hovik: So essentially, Armenia is marching lockstep in the direction of being an extraction colony.
Asbed: Kind of like an oil country, right? Just the way, for example, many of the Now they do, now they do,
Hovik: but just imagine about 75 years ago when these countries were starting to be exploited. How many
Asbed: universities do any of the Gulf states have? How much industry did they have? They are just pure extraction and now they’re finally starting to wise up. They have their sovereign funds, they have their refineries, etc.
But Armenia is at the start. There are no guarantees for this kind of investment currently.
Hovik: You know, what’s interesting is that I was trying to compare it to the Ukraine deal that the United States had. Now, I understood that Ukraine had a lot of debts to pay to the U.S., so there were more binding stuff that Ukraine had to do. But there was a guarantee that 50% of the revenue would stay in Ukraine. So Armenia has no such guarantees.
And, you know, I would say that Ukraine has much more leverage in negotiations just out of pure size and amount of resources. Armenia is basically for the U.S. I don’t know what what is in it for the U.S. I mean, Armenia has what minerals does Armenia have that the U.S. is interested in?
Well, I don’t think it’s a huge amount of the world supply. Right.
Asbed: No, no, it’s like three or four percent, I think, of very certain specific minerals. A practical list for Armenia would be like copper and molybdenum, the most obvious hard mineral assets that Armenia has. Then there is zinc and iron and related industrial minerals. They’re already tied to Armenia’s mining sector.
Anything else is basically unspecified in any of the documents, probably just fluff. And in the near term, medium term, I don’t see anything happening in that. Again, the danger is becoming a raw material in transit node. And then there’s absolutely no guarantee of benefits that comes to Armenia.
Unless Armenia gets processing plants, they get control over geological data to understand what’s where and stuff like that. The West has some very good prospecting capabilities. Armenia doesn’t. Tax revenues.
And unfortunately, you know what it says about tax revenues in the documents. There are some There are some tax exemptions for the U.S. There are tax exemptions for this TRIPP development company that we’ll talk about in a moment. So even the revenues are compromised.
What does it say for the TRIPP framework document, Hovik?
Hovik: I think it’s an initialed document. It’s not a fully signed or executed statement, but essentially They established a joint venture, the TRIPP Development Company. The U.S. will have 74% stake, so controlling share. And Armenia has 26% stake for 49 years.
And then after that, the U.S. share drops…
Asbed: I mean, just imagine, Hovik, 49 years. We may not see the end of this contract. Our grandchildren… And our children will be old people by the time this contract ends.
Hovik: I mean, but there’s another 49-year period, right? But wait, there’s more. But wait, wait, there’s more. I mean, I can’t imagine all of these people who support Nikol right now were complaining that Armenia was in the past had given like railway concessions to Russia.
Armenia had given you know had had sold its industrial assets that it couldn’t use to Russia in exchange for debt repayment and that was just like a cash transaction right now we are signing up Armenia Pashinyan is signing us up for a hundred-year commitment and it’s not even clear on what benefit Armenia is going to get. As we said, it’s going to be fully tax exempt. I think mostly tax exempt for the U.S.. One of the key points which is interesting is that if there is conflict with Armenian law, with the exception of Armenian constitution, If there’s conflict with any Armenian law, then the agreement takes precedence, which is another…
Asbed: Shocking, to be honest. There’s your sovereignty, by the way. You know, the laws don’t apply to the TDC, the TRIPP Development Company.
Hovik: And the thing we’ve raised from the beginning is that the US has no obligation to maintain its share, right? If Trump has a bad day, if some Armenian cusses him, in front of the White House lawn he can just decide okay I’m done with Armenia and I’m gonna sell my shares I mean I think there’s a mutual agreement it has to be mutually agreed but if the US decides to give away his shares and it has all these other levers of power against Armenia including foreign aid including everything else that you know the US has How is someone like Pashinyan going to resist that? And it’s not even clear.
The U.S. could sell its stake to a Bahamas company or something like, you know,
Asbed: what do you call it? There are no guardrails. They could sell it to enemies of Armenia at the time. They could sell it to Turkey.
They could sell it to Azerbaijan, create huge conflicts of interest for Armenia.
Hovik: And there’s nothing Armenia could do. But Turkey is an obvious, I mean, you would know that Turkey and a future Armenian leader could say that, reject that sale. So, okay, mutually they would, but the issue is that, yeah, just on the basis of negotiation leverage, the US has, Armenia would basically risk everything, all the benefits that it’s deriving from U.S. in order to do that.
Asbed: Even at the 50 year mark, Armenia would have up to 49% stake, which is still a minority stake. So I don’t believe that Armenia could legally under the binding terms, but we’re not in binding terms yet, could reject anything like that on the part of the U.S. The U.S. could take it and sell it to some shell company in the Cayman Islands or Turkey or Azerbaijan and Armenia would not be able to stop that. with a minority stake and definitely would.
Hovik: I mean, Armenia would have to mutually agree, but Pashinyan, if it’s someone like Pashinyan, then he would say, oh, it’s just a it’s an offshore company. You can’t prove it’s Turkey. So anyway, I mean, the bottom line is that it is another deal that is completely Disadvantageous and I watched a few analyses on this you know one of them, my favorite analyst, is Hakob Badalyan and you know he’s really questioning what is in it for the U.S. to sign this thing the only purpose of this agreement seems to be to have a corridor for Azerbaijan and Turkey that is managed by the U.S. That seems to be the only pretense to have this agreement.
Of course, we talked about the US controlling China to Europe trade and so forth. Okay, so it’s a minor ability to hinder things, but I don’t know how the US would hinder it but essentially the formulation of this agreement is being done at the expense of sovereignty in Armenia and Azerbaijan is going to get some yet to be unspecified but still unimpeded access which means that Armenian sovereignty is going to be degraded and the US is going to be the guarantor of that unimpeded access, which is…
Asbed: I believe you’re 100% right. First of all, everything is coming at the expense of Armenian sovereignty. So those are the risks that Pashinyan is putting. When I say that he’s gambling the house, this is what I mean.
He is gambling our sovereignty away. The beneficiaries, as far as the United States signing it, I think there are at least two issues that it’s signing up for. First of all, Turkish power projection all the way to Central Asia. Taking what they call it the “soft underbelly” of Russia, completely surrounded by NATO power.
Azerbaijan is a cog in that wheel as well in the longer term. Today, it’s a beneficiary because it really wants to access Nakhichevan and take over Armenia, etc… But over the long term Azerbaijan really doesn’t matter that much, it’s actually Turkey going to Central Asia. And second, they get a real foothold right on the border of Iran.
This is an Israeli project, right?
Hovik: Yes.
Asbed: I mean, in many ways, Trump, I think, once said it wasn’t so much about the trip, but it was about attacking Iran and everything. He basically said we did this for Israel. Yeah, we can just stop there. Yeah, there was also a third document.
This was the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The charter is broad and it covers sovereignty, democracy, a whole bunch of other things. You know, we’ll put these things in the show notes. The strongest thing that is given to Armenia is that, you know, the document, I think, mentions a million times that the Armenian sovereignty is not impeded.
Essentially, Armenia maintains sovereignty. It mentioned it so many times that you have to say, I must understand something about the reverse of this, that Armenia is losing its sovereignty. That’s why it is mentioned a whole bunch of times
Hovik: I want to mention another thing Basically this whole TRIPP agreement carves out only two things that are the responsibility of Armenia and that’s customs and duties. So essentially everything else is outsourced to this private company. We don’t know the makeup of this company. We don’t know who’s going to be the company and who’s going to be its leadership.
And I think when it does that, basically everything else is given away. Whereas if you compare it to November 9, which Hakob Badalyan also did, he basically says that November 9 was much stronger in terms of maintaining sovereignty for Armenia.
Yes, Azerbaijanis would be escorted by Russians through Armenia, but no rights were given away, no tax exemptions were given away. and Armenian law was fully complied with here we’re just basically giving everything and carving out only customs and border control as the responsibility and even then we have this front office back office scenario where essentially Azerbaijan does not want to see any Armenians so what’s going to happen is in the front office they’re going to put some company and we don’t know who these employees are going to be and Armenia is probably going to only be able to quality control these people, right, and manage them in the back office, which is…
Asbed: Hovik, if you are in the room, let’s say with Aliyev, and says, I want to go through your country and I don’t want to see any Armenians, I would have walked out. It’s only a person who has absolutely no honor and dignity who would sit there and continue negotiating. Okay, how can we make it so that you don’t see any Armenians in the room? I can’t imagine the negotiation that happened over there.
This is one of the reasons why Pashinyan cannot continue in office because he does not know how to negotiate with Aliyev. Aliyev whipped his ass. in the war. And ever since then, it’s been a capitulation, like you say. The problem with these agreements that we’re talking about is that there are no security guarantees on the part of the U.S.
There’s no commitment to defend Armenia. There’s no commitment There’s no commitment to put any kind of pressure on Azerbaijan if it starts coercing Armenia into issues, into war, into any kind of negative situation. There’s no commitment on the part of the U.S. I’ll just cut it short.
In a geopolitical situation, in realpolitik, if you don’t have a way of enforcing your end of the deal, You’re toast. The worst is going to happen. The worst is going to happen. It’s just a matter of when it’s going to happen.
Hovik: And also just on the comprehensive strategic agreement, right? Whatever it’s called. I mean, it’s just wording because if there’s a comprehensive agreement, like you said, it would take into account military guarantees, security guarantees, and it would also take into account military sales. but defense sales but the agreement doesn’t mention anything substantive about defense sales you know I mean only like some you know right to purchase American weapons but nothing complete and nothing open-ended I think so so all of it is for Armenia I think I don’t know scraps on the table We know what the U.S. motivation is.
We know what the motivation of Azerbaijanis and Turks is. This is complete capitulation for Armenia.
Asbed: Hovik, what do you think Russia and Iran were watching as they watched Rubio?
Hovik: Look, yeah, both Russia and Iran are against TRIPP for obvious reasons. Just today, we’re recording this on Monday. We’re going to publish an episode where we had a discussion with Sergey Markedonov. And we asked him, like, why was Russia silent all this time?
And he mentioned to us that even if Russia was publicly silent, it was communicating to Armenia its strong disagreements about TRIPP. and we of course know the reaction from Iran so as long as Iran is still breathing and Russia of course measures time and space in much different dimensions and much different orders of magnitude than Armenia does I think that it’s basically strategic patience on behalf of Russia and Iran on this but I’m thinking that they’re both dead set against this but what is basically happening is Armenia is basically doing a cliff dive into this with no way out.
Now, of course, we can also talk about the other thing, the mineral rights, so further infringement on Russian and Iranian interests in the region.
Asbed: I mean, I think this is a very important thing, Hovik. The mineral rights, even though we’re talking about a small percentage money wise, because Armenia, you know, it’s three or four percent here. The reality is that this mineral rights issue has become a politicized issue and a major issue in the next global confrontation between China and the U.S., right? They’re fighting this war, access and transportation of these minerals. on so many fronts.
It’s not just the South Caucasus. It’s actually Ukraine. It’s actually Central Asia. They’re fighting it in Congo and Africa.
So it’s going to become a real problem in a few years.
Hovik: My personal belief is that the biggest asset that Armenia has is copper as well Armenia has some of the world’s copper and copper is going to be critical in the AI race because everyone is buying transformers everyone is buying power cables to fuel all those data centers and all the infrastructure needed to equip those and feed those data centers so just yeah I mean small percentage of the world’s copper but I think that if Armenia was smart it would Nothing is stopping Armenia from developing all of these on its own.
If Pashinyan in the last eight years has inflated Armenia’s national debt by eight billion dollars without any infrastructure to show for it, just one billion probably would be enough to have copper smelting and gold smelting and silver Being refined in Armenia and being used to manufacture these technologies, Armenia also needs copper, Armenia also needs power, Armenia needs data centers, and all this is going to be a critical resource in the upcoming decades. Rather than giving it away to the U.S. for raw ore, Armenia could have at least refined it in Armenia and sold it, and that could have been a red line for Armenia.
Asbed: Yeah, much greater value-add there. Absolutely.
Hovik: Yeah. Anyway, but that’s from a Russian and Iranian perspective, I think to summarize, they’re just exercising strategic patience. I think that both are going to be dead set against it. And as Russia has warned many times, if the power balance in the region changes, then that means there’s going to be no security.
And you can interpret that as you want. But both Iran and Russia, I think, will sign on to that statement.
Asbed: Yeah. I mean, one of the dangers that we didn’t mention is something we’ve said time and again, that all this is making Armenia the battlefield for major powers to come. You know, we’re just inviting everybody to come and fight in our country. Yeah.
So, okay. We’ll put, once again, we’ll put everything we have, our research, et cetera, in the show notes, podcasts.groong.org slash episode number, and we’ll go from there. Let’s move forward.
Hovik: Okay, so I want to cover the elections a little bit. They are less than a week away now. I mean, it’s just too difficult to keep up with all these documentations and evidence of the government basically meddling intimidating and interrupting the campaign of the opposition. But I want to mention this one interesting case.
So Samvel Karapetyan’s team, Strong Armenia, was in Tashir. Tashir is his hometown. Essentially, he is viewed as a god in that place. And when Strong Armenia went to Tashir to have their campaign rally, Hraparak reports that shortly before the rally, the government conducted searches in 100 different addresses in Tashir.
Essentially, they used the pretense of doing searches for some nefarious crime. I don’t know if there was even a warrant, but what happened essentially is they searched the homes and businesses of loyalists of Strong Armenia. thereby preventing these people from attending the rallies and that was the end of it as soon as Strong Armenia team was gone then you know everything is normal and again I don’t have to repeat myself but I wonder if this incident will also be reported in the you know European and Western observers I will place a bet with you on that
Asbed: Hovik, just a couple of days ago, we talked to Arthur Khachatryan from the Armenia Alliance. One of the things he mentioned is that he was sitting with OSCE observers and said that he had been an observer and he knew how their reports are made. And he pointed out some very sharp issues with the current campaign where, for example, Pashinyan says that he is going to be What was the Armenian word? “satkatsnel”.
He was going to be killing with prejudice, with violence, certain opposition members. And they completely passed over that. That never made it into any of the reports.
Hovik: The preliminary reports, yes.
Asbed: That’s right. While he said that if I were to say something like that, in 90 minutes I would be in jail. So I don’t know what to say about this. I don’t expect anything good from the current observer missions that I’m seeing in Armenia.
So in a couple of days, I think we’re talking to Philippe Raffi Kalfayan, who leads the International Observatory for Democracy in Armenia, and they made a couple of statements because they were just in Armenia this past week. Do you know what they said?
Hovik: Yeah, so just today they published essentially a very damning report about the pre-electoral climate in Armenia. Last time, they made two visits. This was their second visit. The previous time, they visited Yerevan. and this time the regions including Hrazdan, Sevan, Ijevan, Dilijan and so forth and their statement says that the government has expanded arrests of government critics on vague and speech-based charges essentially ahead of the elections and they also documented claims of foreign interference misuse of state resources by Civil Contract and widespread fear among the voters.
Surprise, surprise, we’ve been talking about all of these things which are confirmed by our analysis of the polling and just empirical evidence based on the reporting that we’ve seen. And the government basically is using every single public employee, every single school teacher, every single administrator to support them and to garner support and is using reprisals against those that would dare to support the opposition.
Asbed: Yeah, I was incensed that actual minors, people who can’t even vote, are being told that they have to go to Civil Contract rallies and appear excited and happy and everything. I think that was appalling. It’s so Soviet to do things like that.
Hovik: You know, so we have a number of foreign embassies. I mean, we’re one of the few English language podcasts out there. And I know that a number of foreign embassies in Armenia studiously listen to us and watch our reporting. And I haven’t heard anything from them regarding what’s going on in Armenia.
I’m friends with some of the people because they reached out to us, reached out to me and said that, you know, you’re doing a good job. I’m, you know, I’m following you guys. But nowadays, nothing. And I bet all these foreign missions will stay silent about this as well because they got the message top down.
Asbed: They’re all in lockstep, unfortunately.
Hovik: So just to summarize, we will include the link to the IODA report. You can read it for yourself and a heads up that we’re going to talk with Philippe Raffi Kalfayan in a few days. So we’ll have an episode on that as well. We’re doing our best, but you know, we have to underscore that IODA is essentially a very small mission.
They’re nowhere in comparison to the dozens and maybe even hundreds of observers that the OSCE/ODIHR is sending. It’ll be interesting to…
Asbed: And the CIS is trying to send, but I believe that Pashinyan is trying to make sure that there are no Russian observers.
Hovik: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to watch the repercussions of this, but the bottom line is that I think that the… The playing field is very much tilted in Pashinyan’s favor. And it’s clear that their game, their play is that they’re going to ram through this election. Obviously, our goal is not to allow that as opposition.
I consider I don’t have a single party, but I consider myself in spirit with the opposition. So the opposition’s goal is to, no matter what, increase turnout and make it difficult for the government to do that. I think that Pashinyan’s rating is not going to budge at all, or maybe like a one percentage point, due to all these shenanigans with the parade. And we haven’t even gotten to the hostages, right?
Basically, I’m gonna make a bet that in a few days’ time, maybe even today, maybe even before this episode is published, Aliyev is going to send some of the lower importance hostages to Armenia, not the Artsakh leadership, of course. And they’re going to be paraded around the Republic Square symbolically. But I think that basically Pashinyan has maxed out on his support. So his goal is to ensure that all those that are going to vote for him are going to vote for him.
Asbed: Yeah, there was a report and I’m really sorry that I didn’t Pay attention as to what the source was at the moment, because this wasn’t on our agenda. But there was an article that said that Pashinyan’s government has done everything to mute the issue and not get those guys back. Certainly not before the elections, because, you know, just imagine, Hovik, just imagine having Ruben Vartanyan in Yerevan a month ago, for example, and the political repercussions of that.
Okay, well, while all this is going on, I’m actually pretty concerned about the ramping rhetoric and some of the actions on the part of Russia, because they have sent an official warning letter to Yerevan saying that Armenia is is getting a number of products on a preferential rate. Now, a lot of Armenians think about the gas that they have as priced nicely because of the relationship with Russia, but maybe not everyone has thought about how Russia is subsidizing this. The gas company is probably selling this at market rates. Armenia is paying a certain share, 177, but the market rate is in the 600s.
So somebody has to be forking out that money and essentially Russia has been subsidizing that cost and they came out and they said, look, we have been doing this. You get grants and loans from Western countries and everybody just says, oh, we got 250 million here, 250 million there. But you really are getting a lot of money from Russia as a friend of Russia who wants to be integrated with the Eurasian Economic Union. Well, if you’re going to tell us that you really would rather integrate with the European Union, all these things are going to stop.
Gas, petroleum, unprocessed diamonds were mentioned. And you did the back of the napkin, kind of a calculation of how much money are we talking about here every year?
Hovik: Also, to add to that, Russia also recalled its ambassador on Saturday. Putin also talked about Armenian products in general agricultural products he said that if would be stopped and that is effectively in place right now like Armenian trucks are being turned away at the Russian border he talked about the privilege that Armenians as migrants or not migrants, but as seasonal workers yeah yeah I mean there are 80,000 Migrant Workers and imagine if each one of them and they wouldn’t go to Russia for to make cheap money right so imagine if each of them makes like let’s say $2,000 a month 80,000 times $2,000 a month that’s. 160 million a month.
Just as also over a billion dollars that all these seasonal workers go to Russia make and bring back to Armenia with them that I think is the biggest threat but if you just look at the gas price Armenia would pay 1 billion dollars extra for gas if tomorrow Putin started charging Armenia 600 euros or 600 dollars per thousand cubic meters rather than 177 now besides that like the other exports Armenia’s exports total exports to Russia in 2024 were around 3 billion so I’m assuming it’s around this in the same ballpark most of those would be affected as well so you lose your foreign exports I think 30 something percent of Armenia’s exports are to Russia you start paying much more for gas we’re not even counting petroleum like I mean a huge portion of the gasoline for cars and trucks if in Armenia is is Russian so and we’re not even counting that but just for natural gas alone Armenia pays, I mean, it would pay 1 billion dollars extra well so
Asbed: Where would the alternative come from?
Hovik: Well, you got to hear this. So, Pashinyan lashed out at Russia saying, you know, we’re no longer a poor country that sees a potato and gets excited. He says, we’re now going to make billions once the US starts investing in TRIPP. Armenia is a country under Pashinyan that has gotten its national debt to $14 billion.
Asbed: And that’s $8 billion in the last eight years. 20% of Armenia’s population is in dire poverty.
Hovik: They can’t even earn enough to feed themselves and Pashinyan is acting like he is making billions already I mean so we’re talking about a very forward-looking prognosis that is very questionable by Pashinyan that we’re going to get billions of dollars and all of this expensive gas will no longer be that big of a deal But that even if it materializes I mean you’re just looking at TRIPP is nothing is there yet so that might be five years down the road meanwhile just tomorrow Russia could flip the switch and you have a couple billion dollars extra in expenses and a hit on your GDP and so forth but what’s interesting is that Pashinyan also said that you know if Russia doesn’t give us gas at normal prices We’re going to build a gas pipeline through TRIPP.
You know, TRIPP is also intended for gas communications. And instead of being paid for it, we will take the gas out of there.
Asbed: This is pure vaporware. And it applies, I guess, because we’re talking about gas here.
Hovik: 1984. I mean, where do they think that gas is going to come from? Who is going to send the gas? We all know, of course, right?
You know, what kind of gas is going to go through TRIPP?
Asbed: Hovik, we have talked on this show a bunch of times how Europe is relying on Russian gas, except piped through Azerbaijani pipelines and stuff like that, rebranded as Azeri gas. Azerbaijan does not have enough gas, does not have enough refined oil products to sell to other people. Exactly. That’s right.
So whether we are going to get it through Russian pipelines or we’re going to get it through Azerbaijani pipelines, it’s going to be Russian gas. And I think that Overchuk said something to this effect, right? He said there will never be any gas in Armenia other than Russian gas. Plain and simple.
Hovik: Yeah, yeah. And it’s sad because essentially everyone can see that this is being done to fool the voters before the elections. Essentially what’s going to happen, or Pashinyan’s plan is, we’ll buy gas that Azerbaijan buys from Russia and sells it to us either at a markup, so it’s still not going to be the same price today, or Azerbaijan is going to basically eat all the profits and just transfer the gas to Armenia at the wholesale prices getting from Russia in exchange for political control over Armenia. I mean, more control than today.
One example of that is after 2008 when Georgia and Russia had that war, Georgia turned off the pipeline. And what happened is Azerbaijan is now selling Georgia Russian gas. And, in fact, it’s selling it at a discount, probably less than Armenia. I mean, the numbers aren’t publicized, but I’ve seen estimates of Georgia getting gas from Azerbaijan from 120 to 160 for 1,000 cubic meters.
So essentially, the price that Georgia is paying is complete I would say subservience to Azerbaijan in terms of geopolitical issues, right? It would not do anything that would.
Asbed: Yeah, it wouldn’t do anything to antagonize Azerbaijan. And this is one reason why we’ve been saying you get your arms from Europe. How is it going to get to Armenia in the middle of a conflict? Georgia is not going to be able to give you free transit.
It will not be able to do that. It can’t antagonize Azerbaijan, cannot antagonize Turkey. So it’ll block the path of any kind of replenishment or munitions or anything to Armenia from Europe. There’s no way they can do that.
Okay, Hovik, let’s close. We have one final topic you wanted to discuss. Here you go.
Hovik: Well, before we go, I just want to tell you that… A tale of two festivals, you call it. Yes, I call it a tale of two festivals. We can look forward to two festivals happening in our region in the coming days, weeks.
Armenia under Pashinyan is going to have a wine festival that coincides surprisingly with the election day, two days before the election and on the day of the election. Yerevan streets are going to be full of liberal, easy-going Westerners and also liberal Armenians who will enjoy the wine and the atmosphere in Yerevan. Just, you know, enjoy real Armenia. In Azerbaijan, of course, in Nakhichevan, which used to be Armenian land, Azerbaijan is going to hold a return to Western Azerbaijan festival and by Western Azerbaijan, if you don’t know yet, that means Armenia.
Azerbaijan is funding a project called Western Azerbaijan Return to Western Azerbaijan is funded directly by Aliyev’s office and the goal is to repopulate Armenia with Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijan has all the power to do that it has people who have a settler mentality. It is going to pick the people that it can send is going to pay them well to do that and they’re going to be willing Participants in this project. Meanwhile, Armenia is saying that’s completely false. You know, no Azerbaijanis are going to come.
And then when they press, you know, the Strong Armenia team is saying like 300,000 Azerbaijanis are being planned to be sent to Armenia. They’re just saying, oh, well, you know, it’s not going to be 300,000. You know, don’t worry about it. It might be only 50.
So
Asbed: Well, there are many horrible narratives. First of all, a numbers thing is complete genocide narrative, right? Oh, one and a half million Armenians were not killed. You know, suddenly you’ve gotten into mathematics, not the real issue, which is genocide.
Here they are trying to say, oh, it’s not 300,000 people. It’s up to whatever. And they start getting into that. And of course, Arsen Torosyan got into a discussion of why Armenia needs to stay a mono-ethnic We need tens of thousands of immigrants.
Well, he’s not talking about Armenian immigrants. He’s explicitly talking about these Azerbaijanis.
Hovik: He’s saying we don’t need Armenian immigrants. We need tens of thousands of non-Armenians. You would think that there are so many Armenians who have left Armenia out of dire poverty. Some of them are in Russia.
You might think that these people might advocate for bringing those people back. Millions of Armenians, the Armenian Diaspora in Russia is the biggest one, and there are millions of Armenians living in Russia, but Arsen Torosyan wants to bring in non-Armenians. He wants to bring Turks and Azeris. Yeah, it’s essentially doublespeak for Western Azerbaijan.
They’re readying the ground. Do not believe their denials about it.
Asbed: If you watch, this is how compromised this leadership is. This is the problem. Yeah. Well, the thought crossed my mind.
Hey, Hovik, what does Pashinyan call Western Azerbaijan?
Hovik: Real Armenia. Yeah, exactly, that’s what we can look forward to yeah and if you don’t want to see this folks if you’re watching us for the few hundred people who watch this episode please do something about it you can do The minimum which is tell all your friends and family to go and vote on June 7 to show up in numbers even if you’re apathetic even if you’re gonna vote you don’t know who you’re gonna be voting for or even if they’re not gonna be voting for the opposition doesn’t matter how they vote but please ensure that anyone who can vote in Armenia on June 7 shows up at the polling booth. It’s low effort.
It’s, you know, they can go for coffee afterwards.
Asbed: Yeah, it’s fun.
Hovik: Go vote. You know, the goal is to ensure that the participation in these elections is high.
Asbed: Vote, vote, vote. Today is June 1st, and this was our Week in Review for May 31st, 2026. We’ll talk to you next week. I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik: And I’m Hovik Manucharyan. Have an excellent day. I’ll see you soon