On January 17, 19 minors – boys and girls – returned to Stepanakert, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, after a forced 37-day stay in Goris, the southern Armenian town halfway between Yerevan and Stepanakert. Azerbaijanis had stopped their vehicles in the area of Shushi-Karin Tak, barged in and filmed the children. Due to the commotion, one of the children had fainted. CivilNet spoke to some of the children after they reached Stepanakert.
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Yerevan to host European Political Community summit in 2026
By Alexander Pracht Armenia will host a European Political Community (EPC) summit in the spring of 2026, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page on Friday. The EPC was established in 2022 as a forum for political consultation among European countries in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The organization, which includes 47 participating countries, holds summits twice a year in different European cities. These gatherings have become especially important for Armenia as a venue for talks with Azerbaijan over normalization efforts. On the sidelines of the EPC’s inaugural summit in Prague in 2022, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol […]
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When Armenia turned to EU: Fact-checking Lavrov’s statement
Hayk Hovhannisyan, #CivilNetCheck Speaking in Yerevan on May 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Armenia is a member, had immediately responded to Azerbaijan’s September 2022 aggression against Armenia and that an agreement had been reached on providing assistance by October. According to him, “the Armenian side proposed to postpone that decision.” He went on to claim that the EU mission was announced later in November 2022, connecting this to Armenia’s recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory at a Prague summit. However, a detailed examination of the timeline reveals significant inaccuracies […]
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U.S. pivots to commercial strategy in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations
By Paul Vartan Sookiasian A recent statement from U.S. President Donald Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff that Armenia and Azerbaijan may soon join the Abraham Accords has raised a number of questions about how the platform for Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel is relevant to the South Caucasus. However, according to CivilNet’s political commentator Eric Hacopian, in Trump’s second term the accords have grown beyond their original purpose into something far broader and more commercially driven. Hacopian argued that the Accords are now functioning as a framework for embedding U.S. economic and security interests in strategically sensitive regions, […]
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The Illusion of Righteousness
Op-ed by Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s former foreign minister (1998-2008) Seven years into Nikol Pashinyan’s premiership, it has become increasingly evident that his administration ranks, by far, among the most incompetent in Armenia’s post-independence history. Worse still, it is marred by corruption and nepotism. Unless the government provides credible explanations regarding the fate of the millions of dollars allocated to ANIF, the more than 100 million dollars in Armenia Fund donations, and the additional seven billion dollars in foreign debt—and these are only a few of the more visible examples—Pashinyan’s government may well earn the distinction of being the most corrupt, […]
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Lavrov’s Yerevan Visit: Crisis Management, Not Alliance Revival
By Tigran Grigoryan Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov paid a working visit to Armenia on Wednesday following earlier visits by his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan to Moscow and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s participation in Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade. Lavrov’s visit to Yerevan marked a notable moment in the increasingly complex and fragile relationship between Armenia and Russia. After three years of visible tension, his arrival, along with the tone of the meetings and the joint press conference, signaled an effort to manage the ongoing crisis in bilateral ties. While disagreements remain, particularly on security and defense issues, the […]
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Armenia’s budget underspent by $620 mln in Q1, report finds
By Elen Muradyan Armenia’s industrial output shrank by a staggering 18.5% in the first quarter of 2025, the sharpest contraction in recent years, raising red flags about the government’s ability to manage the economy and implement key public programs, according to a new report by the Luys Foundation. Luys, a think tank affiliated with the opposition Republican Party of Armenia, released its critique of the state budget’s Q1 execution on May 23. The analysis points to broad underperformance in both macroeconomic growth and budgetary spending, and argues that “systemic management failures” are worsening Armenia’s vulnerability to external shocks. According to […]
