Councilor calls for 'new, genuine revolution' in Armenia

Gyumri City Council member and famous producer Ruben Mkhitaryan has called for a “new, genuine revolution” in Armenia, arguing that the country must recover its “material, national and spiritual losses”.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Mkhitaryan criticized senior military officials and clergymen for what he sees as repeated moral failures and capitulation to the authorities.

He recalled the Armenian Armed Forces General Staff’s statement of 25 February 2021, in which 40 high-ranking officers, led by then–Chief of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan, demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation. Mkhitaryan noted that many of those officials later appeared publicly deferential toward the prime minister, while Gasparyan “vanished” and another signatory, Eduard Asryan, was later promoted to chief of the General Staff.

Mkhitaryan also cited a December 2020 statement by Catholicos Karekin II urging Pashinyan to step down following the country’s post-war crisis, remarks he says were later contradicted by the behaviour of clerics seeking favor from the government.

The councilor argued that the public has long held unrealistic “semi-divine” expectations of generals and clergy, leading to repeated cycles of trust and disappointment.

Mkhitaryan insisted that Armenia needs a revolution that dismantles entrenched systems rather than simply replacing the current leaders.