The victory of Nikol Pashinyan's bloc in the parliamentary elections in Armenia immediately had very significant geopolitical consequences - Armenia's "drift" away from Russia accelerated. Two key generals, who were in fact responsible for the "Integration" of the military machine of Armenia and Russia, were dismissed - Major General Ishkhan Matevosyan, who served as Chief of the Engineering Troops of the Armenian Armed Forces since 2015, and Major General Armen Vardanyan, Chief of the Armenian Air Defense Forces with 2012... The corresponding decrees were signed by President Armen Sarkissian at the suggestion of the acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Nikol Pashinyan tolerated Ishkhan Matevosyan and Armen Vardanyan for a long time, despite their obvious unfriendly position. These generals were among 40 high-ranking officials of the General Staff who signed a statement released in February 2021 demanding the resignation of the government and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. But if the head of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, Onik Gasparyan, and several other key figures, according to Pashinyan's proposal, were quickly dismissed, Ishkhan Matevosyan and Armen Vardanyan remained in their posts.

The fact is that Ishkhan Matevosyan and Armen Vardanyan were important figures for the Russian military machine and the CSTO bloc in the South Caucasus.

In particular, Ishkhan Matevosyan played his role in the August 2008 military campaign of the RF Armed Forces against Georgia. It is no coincidence that in 2008, among several Armenian officials, he was awarded diplomas of gratitude by the then President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan for his active participation in the preparation and conduct of the command-staff and tactical exercises of the CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization "Rubezh-2008".
For the first time in the history of the CSTO, the exercises "Rubezh-2008" were held at three levels: strategic, operational, and tactical, covering all regions of collective security within the CSTO. But the real purpose of these exercises was precisely to support the operation of the Russian armed forces in Georgia.

Formally, the first stage of these exercises started in Armenia on July 22, 2008, the second stage took place in Moscow on July 30-31. As part of the third stage, in early August 2008, the organization of a joint defensive operation "to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Armenia" was worked out. During the fourth stage, the so-called active phase, which took place on August 22 at the Marshal Baghramyan training ground in Armenia, the issues of command and control during the operation were worked out.

Both during the third stage and between the third and fourth stages of the "Rubezh-2008" exercises, the Russian Armed Forces carried out an operation in Georgia, including using "bridgeheads" in Armenia (Russian planes took off from Armenian airfields). Therefore, the support of the operation by the Armenian Armed Forces was also of great importance, and formally it was carried out within the framework of the "Rubezh-2008 exercises".

Ishkhan Matevosyan was then the head of the combat training department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia. The position is not the last one. Those. Ishkhan Matevosyan possesses very valuable information on many issues and, figuratively speaking, is tied by blood with the Russian military and the Russian political leadership. This is not a simple metaphor - the international legal assessment of the war in Georgia in August 2008 about Russia is unambiguously negative both for the top political leadership of the Russian Federation and for its military. Some international lawyers do not exclude that over time, some people may be held accountable for this war, for example, for the wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia (in particular, for crimes of humanity in the same Bosnia, including genocide in Srebrenica). Moreover, in the event of a war in Georgia in 2008, there was a fact of invasion of the territory of a sovereign state, its occupation, ethnic cleansing.

Armen Vardanyen played no less important in the matter of military cooperation with Russia. The fact is that the air defense of Armenia in recent years has been integrated with the air defense of Russia within the framework of the CSTO, and much more closely than other branches of the Armenian Armed Forces. In 2016, already under Armen Vardanyan, at the head of the Armenian air defense forces. The Russian-Armenian regional air defense system was officially formed, all documents were ratified, and at the Combat Commonwealth 2017 exercise, the air defense forces of Russia and Armenia (the latter under the command of Armen Vardanyan) conducted the first stage of combat establishment within the joint air defense system. Therefore, for the "southern flank" of the defense system of Russia and the CSTO, Russia needed its "own" man heading the air defense of Armenia.

They left Armen Vardanyan in his post, even though the defeat of Armenia in the 44-day Karabakh war was due to the "failure" of the air defense system. Those. Armen Vardanyan was accused and made guilty of this defeat. Moreover, in many ways he “framed” Russia, showing that the Armenian air defense systems, integrated with the Russian ones and in fact being part of them, are a “weak link”.

Of course, after the war, Armen Vardanyan embellished the "exploits" of the Armenian air defense forces, which were defeated and suppressed in the very first hours of the war, when Azerbaijan seized complete and undivided air supremacy and began "as if in a dash" to shoot military objects, accumulations of manpower and equipment enemy. But in the “descriptions” of Armen Vadanyan, he said that the Armenian air defense won “victory after victory:

“Captain Ordoyan set a world record by destroying 21 enemy UAVs with combat vehicles, including Baykatars and other modern types. Ordoyan died in the last days of the war. Senior lieutenant, commander of the "Tor" combat vehicle Hovhannes Vardanyan, in addition to inflicting numerous strikes, simultaneously fought an anti-aircraft battle against four unmanned aerial vehicles. He shot down three, but the fourth, unfortunately, destroyed the combat vehicles, and our officers died, ”described Major General Armen Vardanyan.

But the question logically arises: how did the Armenians lose the war with such “heroes-air defense fighters”? The general has an explanation here too. According to Vardanyan, closing the air in full is impossible even in the case of the most developed superpowers. “Even the superpowers do not have such systems that can completely disable UAVs ... During the 44-day war, Azerbaijan had developed military industry, cooperated with Israel and Turkey, which have always supplied Azerbaijan with ultra-modern air attack weapons. In many cases, they not only jointly produced these funds but also through their operators assisted and fought against our Armed Forces in the course of hostilities, ”Vardanyan said following the results of the war in the spirit of official propaganda.

During the Karabakh war, General Armen Vardanyan "framed" Russia, showing the vulnerability of Russian air defense by the model and well-coordinated work with which the Armenian air defense operated (we must not forget that the satellite information that the Russians gave, but this did not help either).

The "interconnection" of the air defense systems of the allies in the CSTO is too serious a question. Before the parliamentary elections in Armenia, if Pashinyan decided to resign the "man of Russia" in charge of this area, the Kremlin would fundamentally oppose Pashinyan. Up to a bet on his overthrow in any way.

Also, how pro-Russian general Armen Vardanyan was is shown by his biography.

Armen Vardanyan graduated from the Riga Higher Military-Political School named after Marshal of the Soviet Union Biryuzov SS, specializing in "Organization of party-political work in subunits and units of strategic missile forces." That is, from the very beginning of his career, Armen Vardanyan was in the key strategic unit of the Soviet army as a “full-time special service officer”. In fact, this is the same "line of special services" that elevated the representatives of the "Karabakh clan" to the rulers of Armenia - previously the provincial functionaries of the Azerbaijan SSR, the same Robert Kocharian.

In 1989-1992, Vardanyan was deputy commander of the launch group for military-political work, assistant commander of the launch group for work with the personnel of the missile regiment of the strategic missile forces of the Far Eastern District (Strategic Missile Forces of the Far East Military District). This is a very responsible post, "random" people were not appointed there. Those. “Loyalty to the Kremlin and its policies” was the main condition for holding such a position.

With the beginning of the Karabakh war, Armen Vardanyan was "transferred" to Armenia, and here he was first the deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile technical base of the RA Ministry of Defense, and then its commander. In 2000 he graduated from the Military Academy of Air Defense named after V.I. Zhukov in Russia and then commanded an anti-aircraft missile regiment in Armenia. Since April 2012, he was the head of the Air Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia.

In general, the dismissal of two key generals in the Armenian-Russian military cooperation is an indicator that Pashinyan intends to sever relations with Russia as much as possible. And whoever comes to Russian military personnel in exchange for such positions will show Pashinyan's real “geopolitical orientation”.

KavkazPlus