When I read Nikol Pashinyan’s message on the occasion of the adoption of Armenia’s Declaration of Independence, one passage immediately stood out:

“Finally, why did the Republic of Armenia, our Government, and I myself not make concessions by September 2020, which was the only theoretical opportunity to avoid the 44-day war?” 

I was almost certain that this was just a trick and there would be no honest answer. I was not mistaken:

“The key reason for this was that as a result of those concessions, all the threats and dependencies we had would have further increased, would have increased disproportionately, leading to the loss of Armenia’s independence and statehood.

We adopted a strategy to preserve Armenia’s independence and make that independence a reality, and the expression of that strategy is the ideology of the Real Armenia, under which peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan became possible, under which real dialogue with Turkey became possible, under which our relations with Georgia and the Islamic Republic of Iran should deepen, under which we become a real and interesting partner for the world.”

Nikol Pashinyan’s teammates have resisted any criticism that he deliberately – or  “inadvertently” – provoked the 2020 war. Yet today, their resistance is meaningless: on August 23, 2025, Pashinyan himself admitted that he rejected the possibility of a peaceful, compromise settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, that is, he left no alternative to war.

Moreover, this was not his first “confession”. 

On April 13, 2022, speaking at the National Assembly, Pashinyan stated:

“I am guilty because in 2018-2019 I did not stand before the public and voice the fact that all our distant and close friends expected us to hand over the 7 regions to Azerbaijan in one configuration or another and lower the bar we set for the status of Artsakh...]

[...I should have presented all this in detail to our people. Not doing this is my real sin. By surrendering, I might have saved thousands of lives, but by not surrendering, in fact, I became the author of decisions that led to thousands of victims.”

In April 2022, Pashinyan also explained why he did not speak to the people:

“To speak to the people about this in time, I first had to convince myself that it was the right path, and I confess, I couldn’t convince myself. Why couldn’t I? For the reason that opposition partners have not been able to come to terms with reality until now, and that reason can be formulated as follows: Sanasar or Kubatli, Zangelan or Kovsakan?”

If previously Nikol Pashinyan seasoned his failures with “apologies” and considered himself “guilty”, today, after concluding an imaginary “peace” with Trump and Aliyev, he no longer bothers. The influence of the ghost of “peace” is so strong that it does not allow the author of the messages to notice the obvious contradictions: if he “had not convinced himself”, how can he now claim that he had not made concessions, because he saw the risks of “increasing threats and dependencies”?

On August 28, 2020, at the Sardarapat Memorial, during an award ceremony for participants of the July battles on Armenian-Azerbaijani battles, Pashinyan declared:

“For many years a public opinion was fostered that a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh issue could only be reached on the basis of Armenia’s unilateral concessions. The victorious July battles shattered the bellicose rhetoric built up by the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan for almost 10 years. It proved that there is no military solution to the Karabakh issue, and that Azerbaijan should inevitably adhere to constructive approaches.”

If we believe in the sincerity of Nikol Pashinyan’s message of August 23, 2025, then we can draw only one conclusion: a month before the war, he not only avoided any attempt to return to negotiations and compromises, but also added fuel to the fire.

Ara Tadevosyan is the Director of Mediamax.