Member and co-founder of the Sasna Tsrer Pan-Armenian movement and commander of the Shushi special military battalion during the Artsakh war, Jirair Sefilian, believes that the many issues in Armenia have to do with the fact that the new authorities did not give any political evaluations on the old authorities. “When Nikol Pashinyan came to power, the Kremlin started a movement that had the intention of causing his government to fail,” Jirair Sefilian told reporters.
According to him, the Kremlin continues to work in this way. “This is causing damage to our country, especially in terms of socioeconomic conditions. I am referring to the rise in the price of gas. The price of electricity is also inflated. We saw how the Lars route ‘closed.’ All of this was done to put pressure on our government. The Kremlin is waiting for our government’s ratings to decrease. They want to remove Pashinyan from power.”
According to Jirair Sefilian, “We have witnessed Pashinyan’s attempts at resistance. He demonstrated this through firing the NSS leader and the Police Chief and through writing a law that banned people from being appointed to those positions whose professions have nothing to do with them. The problem is not Vanetsyan. The NSS needs to be divided according to functions.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
I wonder in what ways inflated prices on gas and electricity, as well as Lars road getting periodically closed, demonstrate Kremlin’s desire to remove Pashinyan from power. Yes, general Armenian population may suffer from these events to some extent – but how do they affect the Prime Minister and his associates? I feel that Sefilyan’s thoughts in this interview do not have much context behind them, just a random set of ideas. I totally understand that Pashinyan helped Jirair to get released from prison. I would have understood if Sefilian was suspicious toward the previous Armenian government here – but why to blame Russia? After all, Russia didn’t create this chaotic situation in Yerevan this summer, when all the city was drowning in garbage – was it also Sanitek’s effort to discredit Pashinyan? And, after all, if Pashinyan is actually removed from power, it will be either some influential people (from Armenia or abroad) or Armenian population who will advance this situation. Russia doesn’t care about Pashinyan and Armenian internal politics in general; even during Velvet Revolution, Russian officials were saying that they did not want to interfere political affairs in Armenia.