The officials include the chief of Armenia’s military police, Ashot Zakarian, the head of an Armenian Defense Ministry department on army morale, Seryozha Stepanian, and two advisers to Papikian.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced Zakarian’s and Stepanian’s impending sacking last week just hours after an army conscript was found shot dead in still unclear circumstances. It was the 12th noncombat death in the Armenian army’s ranks reported this year. Most of those soldiers committed suicide, according to military authorities.
Pashinian insisted both Papikian and the chief of the army’s General Staff, Lieutenant-General Eduard Asrian, are not personally responsible for the fatalities, disagreeing with those who believe they are not doing enough to tackle the problem. He blamed it on soldiers’ gambling debts and other personal problems as well as a “criminal subculture” which he said is prevalent among young Armenian men.
In a statement issued following the sackings late on Monday, the Defense Ministry claimed to be waging a “systematic fight against the criminal subculture.” It said Papikian formed “groups of officers” from the ministry that will visit various military units to “assist” their colleagues serving there.
Zhanna Aleksanian, a veteran human rights campaigner monitoring the military, was skeptical about the personnel changes, saying that the authorities and Papikian in particular simply found new scapegoats for their failings.
“What is the military police chief directly to do with the deaths?” Aleksanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Secondly, if they found it necessary to fire him, they should have found a respected replacement.”
The new military police chief, Aram Hovannisian, is a former chief of Armenia’s national police service who personally led crackdowns on antigovernment protesters in the country. Pashinian unexpectedly fired Hovannisian in June 2025 one year after security forces led by him hurled dozens of powerful stun grenades during one such protest in downtown Yerevan. At least 83 protesters and 8 journalists were injured as a result.
Hovannisian’s son ran in the recent parliamentary elections on the ruling Civil Contract party’s ticket despite facing corruption allegations by Hetq.am, an investigative media outlet.
Armenia - The mother of a deceased soldier confronts Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian during his campaign rally in Metsamor, May 15, 2026.
Pashinian pledged to successfully tackle noncombat deaths of military personnel after he came to power in 2018. However, the problem has remained chronic since then.
In January 2023, 15 conscripts serving in the Gegharkunik province were found dead at their makeshift military barracks destroyed by a major fire. Papikian, who is a leading member of Pashinian’s party, faced calls for resignation from their relatives, opposition figures and human rights activists in the wake of the tragedy.
The mother of one of the deceased soldiers confronted Pashinian and blamed him for the deaths when he held an election campaign rally in Metsamor, a town 40 kilometers west of Yerevan, in May. Pashinian berated the woman before her voice was drowned out by “Nikol Prime Minister!” chants from the premier’s supporters.