Over the past few days, Moscow has treated Nikol Pashinyan with disrespect. This treatment was so tough that it cannot even be considered an implication; this treatment more so consisted of targeted insults. Moscow is not demanding any compromises or actions from Nikol Pashinyan, but it simply is showing him his place through preparing future demands and future compromises. But the biggest problem is that Nikol Pashinyan is currently representing Armenia, and the way people treat him is also the way they treat Armenia.
The first serious attack from Moscow on Armenia was when it refused to extradite former Major-General of Justice and Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer Mihran Poghosyan and instead gave him a temporary residence permit. The oligarch had appealed to Russian authorities for political asylum. The next serious attack was holding the EAEU summit in Nursultan, Kazakhstan. Putin refused to meet with Pashinyan, despite the fact that a meeting had been announced the day prior. Then, Nursultan Nazarbayev handed out medals to all participants besides Nikol Pashinyan.
The next attack was when opposition figure David Shahnazaryan was invited to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations to hold a speech. This leading institute only invites authority figures to hold speeches, so it was a clear attack on Armenian authorities to invite an opposition figure. This was the only attack that Armenian authorities believed they could respond to, but they used fake news to do so, which only worked for the internal audience. Armenian authorities cannot comprehend the extent of these problems; they only see these as attacks against Nikol Pashinyan as a person, so they try to “brighten” his image for his followers. These are, in reality, attacks against the Republic of Armenia because Nikol Pashinyan represents Armenia. This fateful decision made by Armenians has caused Armenia to weaken on an international scale. Its image is weakening, but its authorities are working based on a wrong diagnosis and using the wrong target.
Aghasi Yenokyan
