Yerevan, September 18, 2025
Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, has launched a sharp attack on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accusing him of leaving behind a legacy of ruin that future governments will struggle to overcome.
In a social media post, Ter-Petrosyan drew a historical analogy, comparing Pashinyan to King Artashes II as described by the 5th-century historian Movses Khorenatsi. According to Khorenatsi’s description, Artavazd III, at his father’s funeral, saw the scale of grief and human sacrifice demanded by pagan tradition and exclaimed bitterly: “You are gone, and with you the whole country has vanished! And you command me to rule over ruins?”
Ter-Petrosyan suggested that, like Artashes, Pashinyan is consciously destroying the state – a remark interpreted as a reference to Armenia’s territorial and human losses under his leadership amid wars and escalations with Azerbaijan.
The former president argued that Pashinyan is fully aware of the damage he has caused, linking the prime minister’s “tantrums, insults, and threats” against the opposition to an inner recognition of his failures.
“I do not envy Armenia’s future authorities,” Ter-Petrosyan wrote. “Pashinyan is leaving behind such a heavy legacy that it will be almost impossible to recover from.”
He added that history has always treated such rulers harshly, attaching to them epithets of disgrace.
