Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hello everyone, welcome to Groong’s Week in Review for September 20, 2026.
Asbed Bedrossian: And we’re recording this on September 22, right after Independence Day. Hovik, what are your thoughts about yesterday?
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, my first thought is to give my heartfelt congratulations to all the patriotic
Hovik Manucharyan: Armenians and Armenian nation on this day. Regardless of all the difficulties that we are encountering, this independence was won by tears, sweat, and blood, and it should be cherished. And those are difficult words to say, truly, truly difficult. But this is the 35th anniversary of Armenia’s independence.
So under normal circumstances, it will be a very joyous occasion. In Armenia, yesterday was, just like the last six years, was essentially two parallel universes. The opposition, except Civil Contract , I would say, and their acolytes, participated in solemn processions. They went to Yerablur.
At least they contemplated what’s happening around them. All the former presidents of Armenia prior to the 2018 coup made statements congratulating Armenians and also warning about potential threats to Armenia under the policy of this regime. that I would like to read is one from the Catholicos of All Armenians. He visited the Yerablur, which is the military cemetery in Armenia, in Yerevan. And from there he made a statement.
He said, let us live in harmony and unity and fulfill the aspirations and wishes of our heroic children, for which they gave their precious and cherished lives. I think that sums up how I feel. you know it’s difficult to talk about losses but i think it’s important to reflect on this day because 35 years from 1991 know what was going on in armenia at that time Asbed i believe actually you were in armenia close to that time so tell us tell our listeners and viewers what your thoughts were and what was going through your head Thank you.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, it’s true.
Asbed Bedrossian: And I also feel a lot of pride about September 21. And of course, it does take me back to 35 years ago. I was in Armenia in August and the start of September of 1991. I was busy setting up a data center and some computers for the AUA, which was going to open later in September. and you know these were the days of Gorbachev’s glasnost of openness and when I was a young man I really didn’t put it together the whole Soros Open Society and glasnost but that’s a different story.
Anyway on August 19 there was this communist putsch to push back on Gorbachev and his reforms and tanks rolled into Moscow but after a couple of days I think it took three days that putsch failed. And Boris Yeltsin himself climbed on a tank outside of the Duma and delivered the speech and their military refused to fire on their people. So it all kind of died down. During that time, it was kind of an exciting kind of a time.
People offered to hide me someplace because they said as an American Armenian, if we go back to the old Soviet Union there, they’ll send you to Siberia. But I told them I wasn’t really concerned and let’s just continue with our work. So we did that. After I left in early September, the AUA opened its doors, and you know, they just celebrated their 35 years as well as the independence of Armenia, and Armenia declared its independence.
So those things happened. I wasn’t there on September 21 anymore. And I think despite serious problems, Armenia made enviable progress under its first three presidents. Less than I hoped for, and I thought, but one step at a time, things are coming along. particularly proud of the growth of the Armenia diaspora relations and the community of our global nation present in our lives every day.
It really felt very strong. And I believe that those governments really cared for our global nation and really wanted to connect all of those dots together. And, you know, on this occasion, I don’t really want to talk about how I feel about 2018 and on because we do that a couple of times a week for six years now. So we’ll just leave that But, Hovik, there is one aspect that I do want to dwell on,
Asbed Bedrossian: He squarely rejected the putsch in Moscow and organized everything so that a month later we held a referendum, He squarely rejected the putsch in Moscow and organized everything so that a month later we held a referendum, and over 99% of our people in Armenia declared independence from its Soviet and communist past. Right?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: We know this. Guess how Azerbaijan reacted?
Hovik Manucharyan: Of course, they supported the opposite side and they…
Asbed Bedrossian: Their president, actually was the Communist Party chief, Ayaz Mutalibov, supported the Putsch. supported the Putsch. And then when he saw after a couple of days that it was a failed effort, he flip-flopped to protect basically his power and his life, and he declared independence. Now, that was not a popular referendum, nothing like that. It was just an emergency legislative act declaring independence of Azerbaijan.
And to me, that’s just another example of a very state being on the wrong side of history. And that hasn’t changed yet. And just a bunch of flip-flopping to minimize their damage.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: The amazing thing is, you know, somehow oil is paving over all of these mistakes. But, Hovik, I’m on a little bit of a rant, I guess. And I want to continue. In October 1991, their parliament approved a full constitutional act.
Asbed Bedrossian: It was called On State Independence. And then they had a popular referendum on December 29, which is their day of essentially like declaring the independence. But this is where I’m getting to. Guess who had followed all Soviet constitutional legal processes to declare their own independence from a proclamation to a referendum by December 10?
Hovik Manucharyan: The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh , or Artsakh.
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s right. The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, which we sometimes refer to NKAO, which legally became the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh before Azerbaijan even declared its own independence.
Hovik Manucharyan: And before the breakup of the Soviet Union following all the laws.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah.
Hovik Manucharyan: I mean, it’s important to underscore these measures. It was a true expression of self-determination in a democratic way under all the laws of the country at the time, which…
Asbed Bedrossian: All international laws and Soviet laws.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yes.
Asbed Bedrossian: And, you know, even Azerbaijan knew this, by the way, Hovik.
Hovik Manucharyan: So…
Asbed Bedrossian: Even Azerbaijan knew that this was a legal process because if they didn’t know, why would they in the past year, I think 2025, Aliyev basically abolish the autonomous status of Nakhijevan within Azerbaijan?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Because he knows that they have the right to secede if they follow all of the procedures. and Karabakh did that.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, but enough of the brutal dictator in Baku.
Hovik Manucharyan: I want to remind our listeners and viewers what Armenia was going through at the time. If you remember, Armenia was still reeling from the 1988 earthquake,
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: where tens of thousands of people had essentially been buried alive under rocks. and that’s what actually mobilized a lot of the Armenian diaspora including Charles Aznavour, Kirk Kerkorian to come to Armenia’s help and Armenia was still reeling from that now that’s not enough, then fighting started, Azerbaijan initiated fighting there was the pogroms in Sumgait, Baku I mean all around Azerbaijan all happening around these years. A lot of influx of Armenians from areas of Azerbaijan outside Artsakh. What else was happening? Of course, the breakup of the USSR is very risky.
There were several moments at that time when Turkey actually moved troops to the border in Armenia, and they were ready to attack and they were only deterred by threats from Russia or the Soviet Union at the time. So in the midst of all that hardship and they had actually sort of shortly after that they had the nuclear power plant because you know Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s green agenda that’s that’s what actually you could say also kicked off a lot of the protests on the street they wanted it closed. It was also partly a green movement, but Artsakh was at the core of it. Anyway, it was a dark and cold years.
It is unimaginable to me how Armenia was able to rise up on its feet. We had Artsakh. We had relative stability, economic growth, corruption every year despite what this current regime is selling us, corruption was pretty high during the Ter-Petrosyan time, and it grew until 1997. And if you look at the shadow economy of Armenia, which is published statistics, every year since 1997, it has decreased.
So I’m not making any excuses for any corruption, but I am very much for rational and incremental improvements, And we had a state and military stability for 26 years. So anyway, that’s one reality. And it was all disrupted in 2018, of course. Now, Civil Contract officials who illegally, yet one more time, falsified elections and are in power right now are living in an alternate reality.
They celebrated the day stuffing their faces at various festivals. some coaching because he like always eats an enormous amount of food in front of cameras and i think maybe some part of the electorate likes that i mean maybe he’s uh i think he makes an overt effort to do that anyway they were stuffing their faces at all these festivals no one went to Yerablur they had a big rabiz concert in Hraparak and their officials gave statements that Armenia was really not independent all these years, we were a vassal of foreign countries, I wonder
Asbed Bedrossian: Meaning Russia.
Hovik Manucharyan: whose vassal we are right now yeah of course in fact some Civil Contract officials previously had proclaimed September the Day of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh as Armenia’s True Independence Day. If you can believe that these are real statements coming from the mouths of Armenians. So, I mean, there’s a real effort to reformat Armenian identity, memory, and take out any element of heroism, national values, and so forth. I mean, how long can this last?
I’ve never seen this done. It’s like a brain surgery while the patient is alive. Normally, these things happen after catastrophic consequences. I mean, Artsakh was catastrophic, but it seems like we are being managed into this erasure of memory.
And I don’t know if that can be accomplished very easily. it seems like they choose specific dates, just like Aliyev chose specific dates. He likes symbolism, so he’s choosing months and days of his attacks. So does Pashinyan . So they had festivals when the September 13th anniversary of the Jermuk War happened. and they had festivals on September 21.
Forget about Artsakh.
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, you know what’s funny, Hovik?
Hovik Manucharyan: Stuff your bellies.
Asbed Bedrossian: He creates diversions on those days so that people cannot commemorate or mourn those
Hovik Manucharyan: Forget about what’s going on. Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: events. He celebrates some meaningless festival or a concert or something like that exactly on a day, like this year, of course, he was in Germany accepting a peace prize on September 19, when Azerbaijan attacked Karabakh, and over the next three days, it was completely ethnically cleansed.
Hovik Manucharyan: There’s some controversy around the, that, what is it, the Hessian Peace Prize.
Asbed Bedrossian: The Hessian Peace Prize, yeah.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. Because I think Germany has given that prize to others in the past, or maybe it was a different prize, and they ended up being, you know, ethnically cleansing their own populations. but Pashinyan’s reaction to that was that hey you know you shouldn’t have given this only to me you should have also given it to Aliyev and my answer to that is maybe I guess they should have given one to Talaat Pasha as well because Talaat Pasha also established peace in ancient Armenian lands in his own way but yeah that is the reality that is being presented to Armenians. Hey, everything is good. Look, I’m getting a peace prize.
Asbed Bedrossian: Instead of all this BS that’s being fed to the Armenian people, we should rather celebrate the birthday of Levon Mnatsakanyan, who is rotting in a Baku prison right now. He was one of the legendary Artsakh military leaders, and most people are not even thinking of those guys right now.
Hovik Manucharyan: Indeed.
Asbed Bedrossian: So we should mention that, and we should wish him happy birthday and better days ahead for him,
Hovik Manucharyan: Happy birthday, freedom to all Armenian hostages,
Asbed Bedrossian: and for all of us. Thank you.
Hovik Manucharyan: political prisoners, and prisoners of war . And every time, I feel like every show we should mention that there are at least 19 Armenians held hostage by Baku, and more than 100, I believe several 100, who are unaccounted for and believed to be also, So, I mean, their last evidence is that they were in Azerbaijani custody, and their remains at least are not known, and their whereabouts are not known.
It’s painful, but I do want to talk about September 19, which was the third anniversary, essentially the second year after the incident happened, where Armenia celebrated Independence Day without Artsakh, with Artsakh being completely devoid of Armenians. after nine months of brutal blockade, with Pashinyan’s explicit guarantee to Aliyev that he would not intervene, Azerbaijani forces basically attacked Artsakh on all fronts, and the small army of Artsakh, relatively small, was able to hold off only for about a day. 223 brave Armenian soldiers perished.
Asbed Bedrossian: Even more Azerbaijani soldiers perished.
Hovik Manucharyan: And of course.
Asbed Bedrossian: So those guys, by the way, did not surrender, like Pashinyan has been saying that Artsakhtsis surrendered. They fought tooth and nail for their homeland, and it was only when they saw that everybody decided to give up on them that they thought there’s no point in fighting a country by themselves and losing so many of
Hovik Manucharyan: I mean, just like David Babayan said, basically,
Asbed Bedrossian: their civilians.
Hovik Manucharyan: it was an issue of preserving the genetic fund of Artsakh. 120,000 people made a unanimous decision that, you know, given the lack of guarantees for their safety or their security, Azerbaijan was building huge prisons, you know, getting ready to imprison all the men. They didn’t leave. They had no choice. I think it’s very important to say that.
I think the reason why I talk about this is that now in Armenia, they’re also silenced. I mean, many Armenians, when the Artsakh refugees arrived, many Armenians mobilized and helped them with food, housing, and just basically survival. But many Artsakh people still remain without permanent homes. homes or homes that were given to them by good Armenians. And a number of them have found a life outside of Armenia.
And the culture of Artsakh is now under threat because Pashinyan has also made threats saying that schools should not teach the wrong history that he doesn’t approve. So this is a real issue. And the reason why I said this again is because I want to bring up a site that was set up just recently. It’s called the Digital House of Artsakh Culture.
Artsakhian.org. We’ll include the link in the show notes. It is essentially a digital repository of Artsakh Culture, from language to art to dialects and everything in between. Obviously, this is an effort that needs support, and they have a way that you can support them. go to that website, and if you like the content that they’re trying to essentially create a digital museum, an artifactory of Artsakh, of life in Artsakh, feel free to make a donation and just visit the website artsakhian.org.
We definitely support the effort to preserve the culture and art of Artsakh, the language, until we are able to return one day. okay what else is going on around the world Asbed
Asbed Bedrossian: Have we recovered from that? do you remember when Donald Tusk cried about the possibility of Russia escalating the Ukraine war ?
Hovik Manucharyan: Of course, that was a week ago.
Asbed Bedrossian: Tell us a little more.
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, he did, and he was crying wolf about Russia is going to escalate and so forth, except that it was Ukraine that was doing all the escalation. And this is important because it was happening right during state elections, when Duma, State Duma elections, that happened September 18th to 20th. and it was the largest Ukrainian drone campaign. More than 1,500 drones were launched at Russia. And it just sort of behooves me why do it at this critical time.
And to me, it seems like it only helped fortify the victory that Putin and his party had in the elections. Of course, during this attack, the European support was also substantial. It was actually instigated, I would say, by Europe and I would say even the US. I mean, without their intelligence support, without their financial military support, nothing could be done.
But the end result is that Russia has a new parliament, a new State Duma,
Hovik Manucharyan: that is stronger and more in support and more unified around Vladimir Putin. So what do you think would be the consequences of these elections and the future of the Ukraine war, in your opinion?
Asbed Bedrossian: I don’t have a particular view, but I think more importantly about what you said about the Russian elections, those happened over the last few days, and we will talk about them more in the show that we’ll be recording tomorrow. But like you said, the more important thing to note over there is that the ruling party, United Russia, actually fortified its positions. It’s gone even beyond where it was and now has a constitutional majority and it can do a lot more than it was doing because of opposition. Right now, it seems like they have a very strong hand.
Their elections got slammed by the OSCE, oh dear, as you might expect.
Hovik Manucharyan: Haha.
Asbed Bedrossian: but one way or another we have what we have in Russia so what I’m hoping for out of those elections is that Putin and the ruling party have the strong hand to finish
Hovik Manucharyan: And
Asbed Bedrossian: this war
Hovik Manucharyan: the mandate, yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: to finish the war that’s what I’m hoping
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. There was also talk about new negotiations, trilateral Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. And I think that’s important to follow. But I think that essentially this strengthens Putin’s hands and it will allow him to be more confident in terms of military allocation. but yeah, I mean, I think it’s about time that Russia finishes this.
It will be I think the more humane approach, unfortunately but, you know, let’s talk with Dziunik, we’re going to have her later in the week and ask how this will manifest in geopolitics because the Europeans are not going to like this and someone needs to twist their arms So we’ll see what Trump can do on that front.
Hovik Manucharyan: What else is going on?
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, let’s talk a minute or two about Hakan Fidan’s visit to Baku. This is the foreign minister of Turkey. He visited Baku on September 15 and 16. He met with Aliyev.
He met with Bayramov. And, you know, there wasn’t anything to specifically note. A lot of it is well known. He basically affirmed that Turkey is going to continue conditioning any kind of normalization with Armenia on the relations with Baku.
As long as Armenia continues doing what Baku says it needs to be doing, the current constitutional change efforts and what have you, they’re going to continue that same line. On the Defense Alliance front, they emphasized their Shushi Declaration and focused on strengthening trilateral axes. There’s a Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia axis, and we all know about the Turkey-Azerbaijan-Pakistan axis, so they talked a lot about those.
Now, I read up a little bit on media that consider the Turkey-Azerbaijan-Pakistan a response to the India-Armenia ramping alliance. but I don’t quite agree with that because I think that the Armenia-Indian relationship is more of a response to the Turkey-Azerbaijan and Pakistan axis because that axis did a lot of damage during the multiple wars in the last six years, right?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: I don’t know, do you agree?
Hovik Manucharyan: Look, I don’t think there’s an example of two nations like Turkey and Azerbaijan, and also now Pakistan is in the mix, and nuclear power, have such ties. And that is, you know, what many Armenians, I think, are envious of, because Azerbaijan was started as a Turkish project. back into history in 1918, it was the Turkish army that marched into the South Caucasus , captured Baku.
Asbed Bedrossian: What was it called? The Islamic Army. So actually, Fidan was in Baku celebrating, I think, the 108th anniversary of that army marching into Baku,
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: if people want some historical perspective.
Hovik Manucharyan: And they forced essentially Russia to recognize or maybe to tolerate this new republic.
Asbed Bedrossian: Can I say one more thing, Hovik, before you move on? That army marching into Baku killed tens of thousands of Armenians, by the way.
Hovik Manucharyan: Of course. Baku has a rich history of Armenian presence. Architecture is being erased day to day, and Aliyev doesn’t like it whenever he sees any trace of Armenian artifacts left in Baku. But, you know, you can’t rewrite history so quickly.
But yes, they essentially helped commit a pogrom in Baku and Shushi. so my response to your question is that yes, these are essentially truly one nation, two states. I mean the only other example I can bring up is Armenia and Artsakh when we had non -treasonous leadership. US-Israel I think is more of the tail wagging the dog or the dog wagging the tail and they are working in unison but of ideology, religion, and cultural cohesion, linguistics, you know, we should not expect any other alliance to be as strong as the Turkish and Azerbaijani alliance. And we have to accept that as a fact.
And Armenians like to complain that Russia, you know, yes, Russia has its own interests, and they are less aligned with Armenian interests than Turkish and Azerbaijani But that is a fact that we have to deal with. And for 26 years, Armenia was able to stave off this alliance between Turkey and Azerbaijan, and we were doing good on that front. And Armenia was able to prevent Turkish involvement directly in the Armenian -Azerbaijani conflict until Pashinyan came along.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: So that also needs to be mentioned.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, I read up a little bit in Russian media about how they echoed on Hakan Fidan’s visit. wasn’t very surprised by anything. They said they actually reacted more about commercial shipping lanes in the Black Sea and how the Montreux Convention continues to hold so that Russian ships can go through the, you know, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, etc., etc.
Okay, I guess I can’t say that I was really surprised by the fact that when it came to Eurasian corridors, transport corridors and things like that, they talked about the TRIPP and the Zangezur Corridor Project and emphasized that any kind of transport through Armenia has to respect existing Russian security arrangements rather than just Turkish dominance. And I found that rather subdued even under today’s conditions.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Russia has to realize that there is a huge, huge compromise of their security and economic interests in the South. And I don’t see them responding enough. That’s why, by the way, I keep saying that I hope that the Ukraine war is ended so that they can start paying a little more attention to their South.
Hovik Manucharyan: That’s why you should care about the Ukraine war more, Asbed.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yes, I care about it to that extent right now because I just feel like there’s not enough energy to finish that war.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, essentially Armenia…
Asbed Bedrossian: On both sides. I’m not saying the Russians are not doing. I’m just saying both sides. And I’m talking about Ukraine being as much of a proxy war between the West and Russia as Armenia is, essentially.
So those poor people are also caught in the middle. So I’m hoping that between Russia and these Germanys and these Frances and Europe, basically they realize there’s a lot cheaper way to obtain their energy by finishing this stupid war.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. Okay, so the rest of this is going to be short news, but still worthwhile and important to mention.
Hovik Manucharyan: So guess what diasporans who support Pashinyan, if there are any left, it will be now five times more expensive for you to become a citizen of Armenia and contribute to Armenia due to the policies of the Pashinyan regime. basically hiked up the price for citizenship from about 138 to 689 and then the fee to terminate your citizenship increases tenfold looks like they’re you know yeah i don’t know how to read into this but
Asbed Bedrossian: So, beyond the politics between Armenia and diaspora, was there an economic reason why they jacked up the prices?
Hovik Manucharyan: I don’t think so. I just think that it’s…
Asbed Bedrossian: Or are they just trying to discourage diasporans from getting Armenian citizenship?
Hovik Manucharyan: Look, the amount they spend in one food festival is probably enough to cover all of these price hikes. I mean, it’s not like millions of diasporans are going to Armenia to become citizens. Maximum, there’s like 1,000 people or 10,000 a year. That would amount to $500 times half a million bucks or whatever.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay, half a million bucks or whatever.
Hovik Manucharyan: So it’s not much. And I think they paid more to some of the singers at these festivals. So no, this is a deliberate policy.
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, it’s not 100% sure that that money will cover the festivals, the way you were saying that they’re eating at these festivals, these Civil Contract people.
Hovik Manucharyan: They’ll just cover Pashinyan’s lunch.
Asbed Bedrossian: Food bill, right.
Hovik Manucharyan: So congratulations, Diasporans, who support Pashinyan. Now, let’s move towards…
Hovik Manucharyan: There is some, I guess, good news in that I think Iran is showing initiative in streamlining relations and customs, services with Armenia. So now they have this green corridor between Norduz and Meghri, where if you want a transportation between Armenia and Iran, we’ll operate under more streamlined and simplified procedures. So this is welcome news. And thankfully, the Pashinyan regime, when it’s not sort of acquiescing to put sanctions on Iran, you know, with the US, or being about it.
At least they are now, they have probably no choice but to respond to Iran in kind, and now we have simplified procedures between Iran and Armenia, so I’m glad for that.
Hovik Manucharyan: I also want to talk about the internal politics of Armenia you know we talked about municipal elections in Armenia and Pashinyan is basically really out to show that he’s going to tighten the leash on all the municipal so anyone who is in the opposition is in jail in municipal elections and all the rest are loyal servants to Pashinyan. What was really surprising and disappointing to me was the case of Arush Arushanyan. He is the mayor of Goris.
If you remember the phrase Syunyats Voghjuyn, the greeting from Syunik, he immortalized that and his people immortalized that when in 2021 he was leading protests against Pashinyan. and then they jailed him and the rest is history, but I’ll go into more detail they jailed him, they opened criminal cases against him and voila, just a week ago Arush Arushanyan announced that his party is joining an alliance with Civil Contract for the Goris elections, municipal elections for the upcoming elections. And just like that, one week after that announcement, the Court of Cassation in Armenia dropped the criminal case against him. So the prosecutors…
Asbed Bedrossian: Unbelievable.
Hovik Manucharyan: Just a coincidence,
Asbed Bedrossian: You jail the guy and out pops a Civil Contract minded fellow.
Hovik Manucharyan: Asbed. Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: You know, the funny thing about this is that they also recently arrested a Civil Contract mayor. Of course, he was installed a few years ago, I believe. Khachatur Andreasyan was the mayor of Meghri. I looked a little bit into the articles about this and of course this is coming right before elections on October 25 and I think that like you said they’re tightening the screws and this person was maybe not 100% aligned with their structure
Hovik Manucharyan: Or it’s symbolic and he will be let go. I think Pashinyan has to show that he’s being tough equally on his own people. And that’s how I…
Asbed Bedrossian: It’s the one single example of a Civil Contract person. So it’s not quite equal-handed at this point, what with, you know, all the clerics,
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: all the opposition people jailed for months and years. We’ll see where this goes.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: I’m not going to say more because I actually don’t know the full history, but probably after the elections we’ll have a little more understanding.
Hovik Manucharyan: Now, maybe there were a few other cases over the last months, but also I think that this fake around Narek Nalbandyan and this now like this public attack against Hayk Sargsyan, who used to be a loyal Civil Contract follower and MP, are all part of this show where they try to show that they’re tough. And maybe Pashinyan also wants to any potential for Civil Contract internally to, you know, any dissent within Civil Contract. I’m not sure. So we’ll see how it goes.
I think the municipal elections will become an opportunity for more tensions in Armenia. It’s inevitable, I think. And we’ll see how it goes. I think Strong Armenia and other opposition parties, I think the ARF, maybe not as part of Hayastan Dashinq, but individually will take part in some of the contests that are coming up.
Hovik Manucharyan: big prize just we should mention for Civil Contract is Gyumri and they want to time that just appropriately because I think they can through arrests through intimidation they can trigger a
Asbed Bedrossian: Some kind of snap elections maybe.
Hovik Manucharyan: snap elections like a vote of no confidence or whatever snap elections or a lack of quorum in Gyumri which will and if you have that a few times then they can say, you know, now automatically we have new elections. So they can trigger that, and I think they’re waiting for that. But they’re gearing up. That will be the big fight for Armenians, for municipal elections.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay, Hovik, before we close, I noticed a couple of weeks ago there was a little snafu on the part of Vahagn Khachaturyan, and he mentioned that there are, after correcting his numbers, 4,800 casualties. So that’s becoming a little bit more of an official list, or I should say an official number of the dead in the 2020 war. Are you satisfied with the government having kind of an official number yet? Thank you.
Hovik Manucharyan: Of course not. This is, you know, I should say they have an official number, but who are these people? I mean, how can you keep the list of people who died in such a major catastrophic war secret? And what are you trying to hide?
You know, so we want their exact names. We want to know where they died exactly, the time of day, the date when they died, because all of that is going to be important. And I think that will tell a story. It will tell a story of betrayal by Pashinyan, I think.
Asbed Bedrossian: Now, Hovik, there’s something else that I want to know.
Hovik Manucharyan: autopsies, including volunteers.
Asbed Bedrossian: We’re talking about the 44-day war in 2020. If you look at a lot of people, they don’t look at the war as having been a 44-day war. They feel like that war is still going on or went on for at least two or three more years. how is the government accounting for the people who died in the September 12-13 war in 2022 and then all the way until the deaths in the final defense of Artsakh in 2023? How are those being accounted?
Hovik Manucharyan: Same policy, same policy, complete silence, they won’t release any of the names. Part of it, I think, has to do with also trying to downgrade the memory, because, you know, if you look at World War II, I mean, people from both sides of the World War II, to this day, if they had lost one, someone who fought, and they go and try to find any trace of their loved one 50 years afterwards. There’s always news that, okay, we found their bones, they did the DNA test. So this is really important for memory, and this is really important for dignity.
And if we have a dignified peace, then all of this should be laid out. All of our deaths, all of the people who gave their lives should be known about. but i think that this is a you know part of uh pushing a strategy of masking the importance of this event but also i i say i i think there’s a hidden tale of betrayal this here and this is why they don’t want to um you know publish these numbers so yeah
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah. All right, Hovik, we’re going to leave it there for today.
Asbed Bedrossian: There was a reader or a listener on YouTube who said, why are you guys so bleak with all the depressing news and everything? It’s hard to answer something like that. I guess you and I have had some discussions about how bleak September is, and week after week we talk about this. Maybe our listeners should go and listen to Pashinyan.
He’ll be declaring his joy and independence, I guess, on September 27. So that’s still outstanding. Remember when he said that the real independence was getting rid of Karabakh. Essentially, they lost the experience starting on September 27.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. would say, yeah, I will give credence to people who are exposed to the positive news that is vomited by Pashinyan media day in and day out, state-controlled. they have a lot of resources, all the European and Western media provide air support for that news and essentially astroturfing the truth but for real Armenians, this is we have to tell the truth, I think the only way the only tool we have, the only tool I have is a microphone and I cannot mask the truth if there was something good to talk about I would talk about it
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, I told him, I think I replied to that comment also,
Hovik Manucharyan: yeah
Asbed Bedrossian: that as soon as there’s good news, they will hear it from us. And I just want to say, yes, there are sad dates, but we’re not depressed and we will never surrender.
Hovik Manucharyan: No, I’m not depressed. I’m showing my resistance, and the only way I can do it, and I think it’s important to convey this to our audience. just follow the trail. We are an independent podcast, and the only motivation for me is to tell my friends, to tell our subscribers about what’s going on in Armenia. The other side are, and I won’t mention names, but they’re all funded by Western NGO money. and we know if you follow alt media then you know how that money is used and what is the purpose of it try to present the truth as we see it and yes Armenia is in dire straits right now and no we cannot paper over it Thank you.
Asbed Bedrossian: Support us, podcasts.groong.org/donate. And we will talk to you next week. I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik Manucharyan: And we’ll be coming on the show again. Bye-bye.