Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Thursday strongly condemned Russian troops stationed in Armenia for holding an apparently unannounced military exercise that caused panic in an Armenian village.
“That was an inadmissible incident,” Pashinian said at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. “I regard that as a provocation against friendly Russian-Armenian relations and a provocation against Armenia’s sovereignty. I think that the guilty individuals must be held accountable.”
Amateur video posted on social media showed chaotic scenes in Panik, a village in the northwestern Shirak province, on Tuesday, with local resident terrified by the sound of gunfire and explosions. Some of them angrily confronted Russian soldiers training very close to village houses, demanding explanations.
The soldiers stopped the exercise as a result. They are part of a Russian military base headquartered in the nearby city of Gyumri.
The commander of the base, Colonel Vladimir Yelkanov, and his deputy Alexey Polyukhovich apologized for the incident on Wednesday at separate emergency meetings held with Armenian Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan and Shirak’s governor respectively. They said that the Russian military launched an internal inquiry.
Pashinian said that Armenian authorities must also investigate the incident. “I am told that the police are preparing materials [for a probe,]” he told ministers.
Panik is located very close to one of the two shooting grounds used by the Russian base. Local residents say that the scandalous drill was held within the administrative boundaries of the village.
Pashinian’s strong reaction was criticized as disproportionate by Armen Ashotian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations and a senior member of the former ruling Republican Party (HHK).
“Any infringement of Armenia’s sovereignty is undoubtedly unacceptable,” Ashotian wrote on Facebook. “But this incident did not constitute one.”
“It is not comprehensible what Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s sharp assessment given at the government meeting was aimed at, considering the apologies and regrets that were voiced by the Russian military base yesterday,” he said.
Warning of serious damage to Russian-Armenian relations, Ashotian added that Yerevan should now scramble to “freeze this dangerous process through diplomatic channels.”