By popular demand, the uncut Armenian version of our
@HairenikMedia
interview with Archbishop Bagrat Galstyan.
Topics range from his observations on reverence for national martyrs in Iran, to why the Christian faith makes a person not weaker—but braver.
Horrific reports surfacing on Telegram that Baku liquidated
#Russia
's deputy peacekeeping chief and his convoy b/c they were alerted to a massacre, reached the scene of its aftermath and photographed how Azeri forces had raped and mutilated bodies, including of children.
#Artsakh
The Republic of Azerbaijan, which stole its name from a region of Iran, claims lineage from the Oghuz Turkic tribe of Central Asia, is armed by Israel, and backed by BP, is about to demolish the millennia-old Armenian heritage of Artsakh, the birthplace of the Armenian language.
Azeris have desecrated the tombstone of Saint Grigoris— grandson of the founder of the Armenian Apostolic Church, St. Gregory the Illuminator — who is buried beneath Artsakh's 4th century Amaras Monastery.
Telling behavior from the professed heirs to Caucasian Albania.
#genocide
I've never seen Republic Square like this.
Tens of thousands gathered in solidarity with
#Artsakh
, against capitulation to 🇹🇷🇦🇿.
Students have blocked off the entrances.
A national liberation committee has been formed.
Everyone knows the very existence of Armenia is at stake.
It is no secret that Baku's occupation of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has heralded the entrance of Israel to this sensitive region north of Iran.
Israel was the key military and diplomatic backer of Azerbaijan's campaign to seize this critical territory and its 138km border with
My God. This is a riot policing drill.
The US is preparing the Armenian army to suppress its own people as Pashinyan edges closer to expelling Russia and surrendering Armenia's borders to Azerbaijan/NATO.
Put Nikol Pashinyan in charge of Palestine and tomorrow he'll make peace with Israel by unilaterally handing over maps to all the tunnels, sending back all the hostages, and recognizing Gaza and Jerusalem as Israel.
I got a call tonight from Stepanakert.
Antranig Chavoushian, whose village Aghavno was disarmed and handed to Azeris by last summer—on Pashinyan's orders.
His 6 kids, wife, elderly mom—all there.
On the precipice of genocide, he had one message to us in Yerevan.
DESTROY NIKOL
Hey Armenians, remember when Ursula condemned Azerbaijan for starving Artsakh for nine months then unleashing total war?
Remember when the EU said Artsakh had the right to defend itself?
I unequivocally condemn the attack carried out by Hamas terrorists against Israel.
It is terrorism in its most despicable form.
Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks.
Iranian FM Abdollahian warns Turkish counterpart Fidan in Tehran today to back off Zangezur corridor plan
Desired Azeri-Turkish land connection would cut Iran from Armenia
"We will never accept any geopolitical changes or limiting of existing transit routes in the region"
"If Aliyev Jr. had been born before 1936, in his passport would be written Caucasian Tatar or Muslim. Stalin invented their nationality. Until 1918 there was no such state as Azerbaijan. Their whole story is built on lies and forgery."
- Viktor Krivopuskov, 'Rebellious Karabakh'
A decade ago Syria's army had lost control of 2/3 of the country.
Deir Ezzor airbase & city districts were under ISIS siege for three years.
Assad leveraged support from Iran & Russia to retake nearly the entire country.
Today Bashar and Asma get a red carpet welcome in China.
أرسل الرئيس الصيني طائرة رئاسية خاصة لتقل الرئيس الأسد والسيدة عقليته والوفد المرافق، الأمر الذي يكشف مدى الاهتمام الذي توليه بكين لهذه الزيارة وللقاء القمة الذي سيجمع الرئيسين في مدينة أقصى شرق الصين يعرفها الصينيون بأنها جنة الله على الأرض .
#الرئيس_الأسد_في_الصين 🇸🇾🇨🇳
Today's unprecedented assault on Israel is inextricably linked to Artsakh's relinquishment as an Israeli base.
Carlos Abadi's prescient words fr 2021:
"Israel finally evened the playing field and has a border w/ the Islamic Republic."
"Azerbaijan just became Israel's Lebanon."
This is what Azerbaijan did to Artsakh for 9 months.
They cut off fuel, electricity, then food.
Had there been no exodus path to an Armenian state, Artsakh would have been indefinitely caged, monitored, and humiliated, just as Gaza has been.
Such indignity is not sustainable.
The term gaslighting is overused, but I can't think of any other polite way to describe the UN sending in a monitoring team *after* nine months of silence in the face of Azerbaijan's starvation siege and *after* Artsakh is eradicated of its people for the first time since 189 BC.
Erdogan's bombast against Israel is for show.
Israel receives the bulk of its oil supplies from Azerbaijan via Turkey.
Azerbaijan and Turkey continue through the assault on Gaza.
Armenian authorities for 30 years of independence denied Israel a foothold in the region.
Iran enjoyed stability on its northern border.
Israel found an alternative, plying Baku with arms to seize Artsakh when the stars aligned under Pashinyan.
We are witnessing the boomerang.
Today's unprecedented assault on Israel is inextricably linked to Artsakh's relinquishment as an Israeli base.
Carlos Abadi's prescient words fr 2021:
"Israel finally evened the playing field and has a border w/ the Islamic Republic."
"Azerbaijan just became Israel's Lebanon."
Turkey and Azerbaijan's genocidal campaign to eradicate Armenians from their homeland continues, detonating homes on the artery between Armenia and Artsakh.
In the past day, they again cut the gas supply to 120,000 Armenians living under blockade.
Not a natural disaster.
Career update: I'm thrilled to announce I've taken the helm of the
@HairenikMedia
Center, splitting my time between our hub in Boston and Armenia
Today marks the launch our Youtube news channel representing an exciting new era at the home of the longest running Armenian
Yerevan police detained and then beat Levon Kocharyan, son of Armenia's 2nd president, so badly he has been hospitalized with a concussion.
Robert Kocharyan, whose decade-long presidency saw a record low of around 100 combat deaths, is Pashinyan's ultimate bête-noire.
#Artsakh
"Whatever is Azerbaijani, should be controlled by Azerbaijan. Whatever is Armenian, should be controlled by Azerbaijan."
Pashinyan can try to laugh this little "slip" off like a juvenile delinquent, but this is his state policy.
Russia's inability to secure the Artsakh population in the face of an Azeri assault and the arrest of Artsakh's former presidents under the nose of the peacekeeping contingent has "dealt a blow" to Russia's regional positions and reputation as a strong power: Duma Member Zatulin
Meet Tatevik Virabyan from Artsakh.
A mother of two young kids, her brother was martyred in the 44-day war.
She's one of dozens of political prisoners in Armenia, detained over the rallies for Artsakh during the Azeri assault.
Yesterday, she fainted for the 2nd time in prison.
#bp
senior delegation, today joined the national leader Heydar Aliyev’s 100th birthday celebrations hosted by
#SOCAR
on the Oil Workers’ Day.
During the visit, they also met with President Ilham Aliyev, paying tribute to Heydar Aliyev.
#bpAzerbaijan
📜
"American taxpayer 💰 are facilitating and enabling" a new genocide against Armenians of Artsakh
A siege "designed to make the republic so uninhabitable that people either die or agree to leave"
@KimKardashian
@esrailian
call on US to cut off Azerbaijan
If we're honest, Armenian elites betrayed Armenia.
The EU provided a platform for treason.
As for Russia, they failed to outmaneuver a Trojan horse and allowed the ruin of people they've fought shoulder-to-shoulder with for centuries.
The entire region is going to pay dearly.
💬
#Zakharova
: The EU mission in Armenia provides no stability or de-escalation.
☝️ It was the EU that convened summits in Prague and Brussels where Armenian leaders recognised
#NagornoKarabakh
as the territory of Azerbaijan.
❗️ It is the EU that betrayed Armenians, not Russia.
Turkey, a state built on genocide against indigenous civilizations, is now sweeping up artifacts of those cultures from US museums thanks to an MOU inked by the Trump admin.
Soon they'll demand Armenian cultural objects.
Not one reporter noticed this.
Nothing to see here. Just a millennia-old civilization ripped from their homeland, where Armenian script was first taught.
Soon UNESCO will put their rubber stamp on the civilizational rebrand, and the Pope will call for dialogue.
Amazing what a BP shell state can do.
#Artsakh
Armenian Genocide orphan handpicked and raised as a Turk by Ataturk to massacre Alevis and Armenians at Dersim.
Hrant Dink revealed her story. In Jan 2007 he wrote in Agos it was "the last straw" for the Turkish state. He was assassinated the next week.
🚨 The Pashinyan administration appears to have quietly stripped over 100k Armenians of citizenship
People are finding this out AT THE AIRPORT.
They have done this by apparently invalidating Republic of Armenia passports containing the code associated with residents of
All those “apolitical” Pashinyan apologists who claimed they were waiting this whole time for an impossibly pure leader to fall from the sky—
Well here he is.
And they’re losing their minds.
Perhaps it is time to admit that Nikol — in all his vulgarity, cowardice, and self
Pashinyan's goons dragged Armenian reporter Ani Gevorgyan from Kirants village so he wouldn't have to face her questions or camera.
What kind of regime would you call this?
Hagop Berberian, descendent of Armenian Genocide survivors, repatriate from Syria and volunteer of two wars in defense of the homeland, was detained this afternoon in Yerevan for calling Nikol Pashinyan what he is.
Second time in 6 weeks police detain a citizen for the same act.
Mesrop Poghosyan of Vank village, Republic of Artsakh, a hero of the Great Patriotic War, has died at 105 after waking up in Armenia away from his home and lush mountains.
"We fought fascism together," he said of Russia, never considering they would allow their comrades to fall.
A demonstration outside the Turkish consulate in Tabriz over the weekend, calling out Erdogan and Aliyev for keeping Israel fueled through the Gaza offensive.
Armenians are paralyzing Yerevan today. All you hear is sirens.
Regular cops not into it. Red berets vicious.
Police stretched. They're detaining as many protesters as they can: ~150 so far. Saw blogger Mika Badalyan grabbed off the street.
#SeptemberMovement
#ArtsakhGenocide
Following my trip this week to Yerevan and areas near the Lachin Corridor, I met with President Aliyev in Baku on the urgent humanitarian needs in Nagorno-Karabakh.
More here:
Professor Vahram Lalayan, a specialist of medieval theology, was the history chair at Grigor Narekatsi University in Stepanakert, Artsakh Republic.
He was at home in Mets Tagher village, Hadrut region, where his research library was located, when he was tortured to death by the
Azeris, who participated in the Armenian Genocide, pogromed Armenians from Baku and Sumgait, destroyed Nakhijevan and are now eradicating Armenians Artsakh, demand Azeris be settled in Armenia.
This is Azerbaijan's
@NATO
Twitter account.
Ukraine "strongly condemns" the presidential elections held today in Artsakh Republic 🤡
Zero surprise here. This is the same Turkish ally that provided white phosphorus to Azerbaijan to deploy on Armenian soldiers in 2020.
Vahram Lalayan, specialist of medieval theology, was tortured to death in his home by Azeri forces in the Hadrut region of Artsakh in October 2020.
Pashinyan mouthpieces, instead of defending Artsakh's self-determination, now promote the false prospect of "rights and security".
🚨
#Armenia
: General Gregory Khachaturov, who sent the Azeris packing from Tavush in July 2020 and fortified positions protecting vital energy infrastructure, has joined the movement.
Pashinyan’s regime jailed him after he ordered his men not to surrender land and put him under
"He is a liar, he said, if people gather in the square, he will resign. There must be no one in the square, right? Or he doesn't consider us human"
— Bagrat Sourpazan
May 9, 2024
Republic Square, Yerevan
📷 Narek Aleksanyan
🗓️Artsakh Independence Day
The Artsakh Republic has endured 8.5 months of siege by Azerbaijan and Turkey
32 years after the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast declared independence, the struggle continues, more righteous than ever
📍NKR Permanent Representation, Yerevan
📣 Artsakh Republic National Assembly will send $2,500 (over 1 million Armenian drams) to Syria to help Syrian Armenian families impacted by the earthquake.
It may seem small, but it is extraordinary. This is a state struggling under a two month blockade by Azeri-Turkish forces.
"Azerbaijan, under the pretext of liberating enclaves, is preparing a strike [on Armenia] in 4 directions, w/ main forces concentrated toward Vayots Dzor. Expected before mid-November."
Republic Press says source is an intel briefing of a foreign gov't.
Four months ago — after Nikol Pashinyan proclaimed that he recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan — journalist Koryun Simonyan warned Pashinyan he was in the process of deleting❌Artsakh in violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.
Pashinyan blew him off.
Israel's envoy to Azerbaijan two years ago stood in ethnically cleansed Kovsagan, just across the border with Iran, claiming Armenians were never there.
"Right here behind me there is, well, so far nothing. But as we say in Israel: where there's nothing, everything is possible."
Israeli agriculture technology and expertise will be incorporated in the first Smart City in Zangilan,
#Azerbaijan
. Amb
@GeorgeDeek
visited the site to see where this exciting
#Israel
-
#Azerbaijan
-
#Italy
cooperation will take place. We hope you love good cheese!
The dominos are beginning to fall. Nikol and his team are now in a race against time to sign their deal with Aliyev.
Tonight tens of thousands were in the street. There is a sense of cold-blooded determination. I do not believe police alone can or will save Nikol. War is coming.
Pashinyan signed off on new territorial concessions today in Granada.
Not only Artsakh, but Tigranashen, whose loss truncates the north-south highway to Iran, and villages of Tavush, which will put Armenia's pipeline to Russia in the Azeri crosshairs.
Prepare for a cold winter.
One year ago Pashinyan handed over Berdzor corridor to Azerbaijan, and with it control over Artsakh's Gazprom Armenia-fed pipeline.
One look at the northeastern areas Pashinyan says he's "ready to exchange", and it should be clear Armenia's own Gazprom line is being put at risk.
None of the Royal Navy’s destroyers or frigates have the ability to fire missiles at targets on land
Former defence chief brands Royal Navy missile limitations ‘a scandal and completely unsatisfactory'
That's 25 km from Lake Sevan.
Azerbaijan launched its attack on Artsakh after four of its soldiers drove over a landmine and died.
Expect this kind of pretext to precede the next stage of the war, aimed at truncating Armenia.
St John the Baptist Church in Shushi has been razed by Azerbaijan.
This church no longer exists.
Brought to you by the UK, Israel and Turkey (NATO) — the three foreign governments invested in Azerbaijan’s occupation of Artsakh.
🚨
#breaking
: Armenia will hand over all Azeri servicemen in its custody, including a convicted murderer, in return for only a third of Armenian POWs.
This is to grease the wheels for a new capitulation agreement, involving the handover of strategic Armenian territory.
Scarce, horrific news coming out of
#Artsakh
Confirmed: Azeris besieging isolated villages
Reports: "An entire column of refugees was shot. Some manage to hide in the forests. Women and children. Many wounded. Russians busy w/ BS. Almost all border villages now a meat grinder."
A nationwide prayer was held for Artsakh at the Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Church with one of the holiest relics of Christianity.
The Catholicos addressed what brought Armenia to this day: not only the genocidal actions of the enemy but the policies of the authorities.
Pashinyan's police forcefully detain Armenian veterans demanding the government take action to open a corridor to
#Artsakh
-- threatening to take action themselves if the authorities refuse to act.
📸Narek Aleksanyan
The masses joining Archbishop Bagrat on his road to Yerevan are submitting to a higher authority and a higher cause. He is the shepherd.
This is bigger than anyone and their petty disputes. Tired labels and boogeymen no longer have the power to keep people disunited. Armenians
Imagine that your ultimate worst-case scenario is not a new Armenian genocide and the dismemberment of the homeland, but rather that Armenia could be "flooded" with "refugees" and your precious Pashinyan is overthrown.
Artsakh's death warrant was drawn up by Charles Michel and sealed in Prague.
Putting aside Pashinyan's complicity, the absolute chutzpah of the EU to put this on Russia (the only power offering to keep Artsakh's autonomy) is out of this world.
It's also going to be a "difficult weekend" for the 120,000 Armenians living under Azeri siege in Artsakh since December, facing genocide by Azerbaijan.
@ukinazerbaijan
@F1
@bp_plc
“It’s going to be a very, very difficult weekend... but what's coming with the car gives me confidence for the future"
Charles Leclerc prepares for a rough ride in Baku but brighter days are coming for Ferrari
#AzerbaijanGP
#F1
Russia resuscitated Artsakh after it was already evacuated in 2020 and offered to push off status for a generation.
Iran, with its indigenous weapons industry, was ready to help.
India, a nuclear power, was ready too.
Against all odds and offers, Pashinyan finished the job.
Armenia's authorities are behaving so suicidally in their embrace of NATO and unilateral concessions to Baku, even the RAND Corporation is publicly advising that Armenia avoid alienating Moscow.
"The US can't guarantee Armenia's security."
Nikol Pashinyan — apparently representing Azerbaijan in Ilham Aliyev's absence — has signed a new document in the presence of EU leaders recognizing Artsakh as Azerbaijan, pledging non-use or threat of force, and open borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
🇦🇲 Raffi Hovanissian, modern Armenia’s first foreign minister, has gone to Tavush to express solidarity with the protest movement.
"The nation should be with Tavush," he says, calling the border residents heroes.
Enforced disappearance in Armenia ⚠️
Blogger Mika Badalyan, staunch defender of Armenia-Russia ties and Pashinyan opponent, reported kidnapped in Goris last night by masked men.
This comes amid series of anti-Russia moves that Mika would have been on the frontlines protesting.
Started as a waiter, now he's a black beret choking a child for Nikol Pashinyan.
Armenians are photographing, identifying and naming and shaming the cops abusing protesters.
Ironic, that when they get called Turks, they get upset and say, "No, you're a Turk!"
#ArtsakhGenocide
Morning in Yerevan
🇦🇲Multiple schools, university departments and workplaces have announced strikes in solidarity with Artsakh
🇹🇷Police have detained the Mother Armenia bloc leader Andranik Tevanyan
🇦🇿Street benches are being removed to prevent protesters from blocking streets
Armenia's second and third presidents, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, were in the crowds to mark Artsakh Independence Day in Yerevan y'day
📷Narek Aleksanayn for Hetq
Three decades ago, Artsakh voted for independence from USSR. Artsakh today elected the 5th president in its history.
Three decades ago, the Aliyev dynasty took power in Azerbaijan, ruling till now.
Today, the EU backs Aliyev's starvation siege and spits on elections in Artsakh.
Azerbaijan : In view of the so-called 'presidential elections' in Khankendi/Stepanakert on 9 September 2023, the European Union reiterates that it does not recognise the constitutional and legal framework within which they have been held. 👉
🚨
#Azerbaijan
's 7-month siege of Artsakh Republic is killing children
Three-year-old Leo and six-year-old Gita died of heat and exhaustion in an abandoned car after going to look for their mom, who'd gone on foot to search for something to feed them.
South Ossetia Pres. Gagloev congratulates newly-inaugurated President Shahramanyan:
"At a critical moment for Artsakh, your patriotism, experience, esteem, public trust & faith in mission are called upon to solve pressing matters and rise to meet the expectations of the nation."
“A modern day tragedy” Baroness Cox, Founder President of Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), reports from the frontline of Armenia — where a convoy of humanitarian trucks is blocked from delivering life-saving aid to
#NagornoKarabakh