Armenia's Defense Ministry in turmoil: Papikyan looks for scapegoats
The personnel purges of recent days at Armenia's Ministry of Defense, according to sources within the agency, increasingly resemble a chaotic attempt by the leadership to find "scapegoats" and shift responsibility for the systemic crisis onto subordinates.
As reported earlier, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is extremely dissatisfied with the work of the head of the defense agency, Suren Papikyan. The minister's reappointment was in serious doubt: Pashinyan repeatedly reproached him for his inability to accomplish the main task in the absence of active hostilities — to form and maintain a normal moral and psychological atmosphere in the armed forces. Against the backdrop of this failure, the number of emergency incidents and deaths of servicemen in the army continues to grow.
Lacking a convenient and loyal alternative at hand, Pashinyan gave Papikyan another chance. In an attempt to prove his professional fitness, the minister initiated a wave of dismissals, trying to write off the constant failures as the "poor work" of the army leadership. However, these personnel convulsions only worsened the situation, provoking a sharp wave of discontent among the officer corps.
Another trigger for the officer corps was the appointment of former police chief Aram Hovhannisyan to the post of head of the Military Police. Within the army ranks, the systemic "policeization" of the Ministry of Defense is perceived extremely painfully. The situation is aggravated by rumors that Hovhannisyan intends to bring along an entire team of former colleagues from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Amid the growing grumbling, the new leader has already been warned of the need to act cautiously so as not to turn the Military Police into an ordinary police station. At the same time, the agency recalls that army structures already have an extremely negative attitude toward Deputy Defense Minister Arman Sargsyan, who also comes from the police leadership.
Source: Hraparak
