Karabakh Marks Somber 31st Anniversary

Lieutenant-General Mikael Arzumanyan was detained and charged with criminal negligence immediately after entering Armenia from Karabakh earlier this week.

The Investigative Committee initially indicted Arzumanyan over the capture by Azerbaijani forces of the Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) which happened at the end of the 2020 war. It claims that he failed to deploy more troops around Shushi beforehand.

Arzumanyan was appointed as commander of Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army on October 27, 2020 less than two weeks before the fall of the strategic town.

The Investigative Committee said on Thursday that the 49-year-old general also ordered Karabakh Armenian forces to withdraw from “strategically important” positions retaken by them days after the war broke out on September 27, 2020. It said that the order amounted to abuse of power.

Arzumanyan’s lawyer, Yerem Sargsyan, did not return phone calls throughout the day. He reportedly said on Wednesday that his client rejects the first accusation leveled against him.

Armenian opposition leaders have criticized Arzumanyan’s arrest, saying that it is part of  Pashinyan’s efforts to deflect blame for the disastrous war. They continue to hold Pashinyan primarily responsible for Armenia’s defeat.

Movses Hakobyan, Armenia’s former top general, also denounced the criminal case against Arzumanyan. He implied that it is aimed at lending credence to Pashinyan’s “political statements” on the outcome of the war.

“Accusing Arzumanyan is not honest, to say the least, because he took over the army at a time when everything was already predetermined,” Hakobyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Secondly, nobody can judge whether a commander made a right or wrong decision in a particular situation.”

Arzumanyan was dismissed as Karabakh army commander last year. He has worked as an advisor to Arayik Harutyunyan, the Karabakh president, since then. A spokeswoman for Harutyunyan on Tuesday described Arzumanyan as “one of our best military commanders.”

Another former commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army is being prosecuted in Armenia for serious military setbacks suffered during the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, it emerged on Friday.

In addition, the Investigative Committee said it has indicted Lieutenant-General Jalal Harutyunyan on two counts of “careless attitude towards military service.” It decided not to arrest him for now.

One of the accusations stems from an Armenian counteroffensive against advancing Azerbaijani forces launched on October 7, 2020 ten days after the outbreak of large-scale fighting. Its failure facilitated Azerbaijan’s subsequent victory in the six-week war.

In a statement, the Investigative Committee said Harutyunyan ordered two army units to launch an attack southeast of Karabakh despite lacking intelligence and the fact that they were outnumbered by the enemy and had no air cover. He said he failed to “seriously examine” their combat-readiness.

The law-enforcement agency also blamed the general for poor coordination between the units, which it said also contributed to the failure of the operation. He should have stopped or delayed the counteroffensive that left scores of Armenian soldiers dead and 19 battle tanks destroyed, he said.

Harutyunyan was also charged over the capture by Azerbaijani troops of the frontline positions of a Karabakh Armenian artillery unit on October 12, 2020. The Investigative Committee statement said that this was the result of inaccurate information provided by Harutyunyan to the unit. The latter lost at least 20 soldiers and 8 howitzers on that day.

It was not immediately clear whether Harutyunyan will plead guilty to the accusations. If convicted, he will face between four and eight years.

The 47-year-old general was seriously wounded in an Azerbaijani missile strike on October 26, 2020. He was appointed as head of an Armenian military inspectorate after recovering from his wounds.