Armenia Mourns Karabakh War Dead

Hundreds of other Armenian soldiers remain unaccounted for more than one month after Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement. Armenian and Karabakh rescue have been looking for them or their remains in various areas seized by the Azerbaijani army. Russian peacekeepers and representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross are also involved in the effort.

A Karabakh official said on Friday that the bodies of 969 Armenians have been recovered since November 13. According to the Ministry of Health, only about 300 of them have so far been identified through DNA tests conducted in Yerevan.

In his televised remarks, Pashinyan reiterated that he accepts, in his capacity as prime minister, “full responsibility” for the Armenian side’s defeat and resulting heavy casualties. At the same time, he sought to deflect blame at Armenia’s former leaders.

“We need a more in-depth analysis of the reality because what happened could not have been the consequence of mistakes committed by one or several persons or over several years,” he said. “We need to … admit that we made mistakes for many years and our mistakes were of systemic, conceptual and substantive character.”

All three former presidents who had ruled Armenia since independence have strongly condemned Pashinyan’s handling of the war. One of them, Robert Kocharyan, has said that Pashinyan’s government made the hostilities inevitable with reckless diplomacy and miscalculations of Armenia’s military potential and needs.

The Armenian opposition also blames Pashinyan for the outcome of the war. Virtually all opposition groups want him to resign and hand over power to an interim government that would hold snap parliamentary elections within a year.