Pashinyan confronted by war victim's sister in Yerevan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was sharply confronted by a local resident whose brother, a senior officer, went missing during the 2020 Artsakh war during his visit to Yerevan’s Arabkir district on Monday.

The woman, identified as Arpine Soghoyan, a gynecologist and medical sciences candidate, accused Pashinyan of presiding over what she called the “dishonorable” territorial losses. “My first outburst is the loss of the homeland,” she told reporters. “In the first war we also had casualties, but we felt proud and dignified. He desecrated everything.”

Sogoyan invoked her missing brother, Col. Hrant Papikyan, saying, “May my brother forgive me if he is alive; if not, may his soul forgive me. But I cannot tolerate this kind of disgraceful loss of my homeland.”

Pashinyan appeared visibly unsettled during the exchange. Soghoyan later described his demeanor as “hysterical” and “inadequate”, saying he attempted to touch her several times before she demanded he keep his distance.

The Arabkir resident, who has lived in the district for three decades, claimed that only a handful of neighbors attended his election campaign rally, while the rest of the crowd consisted of government supporters. “He is leading my country to destruction, my nation to annihilation, trampling on our sacred values,” she declared.