Pashinyan Offers No Public Tribute on Sixth Anniversary of Start of 2020 Artsakh War

Two days after the sixth anniversary of the start of the 44-day war, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has yet to publicly commemorate the date or issue a message honoring the thousands of Armenians killed in the fighting.

September 27 passed without a statement from Pashinyan marking the anniversary, and as of Tuesday, no such message has appeared on the prime minister’s official website.

Pashinyan also made no publicly announced visit to Yerablur Military Pantheon, where many of the Armenian servicemen killed in the 2020 war are buried.

The prime minister was not entirely silent that day. His office published a message congratulating Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedow on Turkmenistan’s Independence Day. No message about the 44-day war appeared among his official statements.

The absence was notable compared with previous years. On September 27, 2025, Pashinyan marked the fifth anniversary with a public message honoring the dead, writing, “Glory to the martyrs, and long live the Republic of Armenia.”

Families of fallen servicemen and political figures gathered at Yerablur on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary. Representatives of the opposition Strong Armenia and Armenia factions, as well as members of Artsakh’s former leadership, were among those who visited the military cemetery.

The day was marked very differently in Azerbaijan, where Sept. 27 is officially observed as Remembrance Day.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and first lady Mehriban Aliyeva visited Victory Park in Baku, where Aliyev laid a wreath at the Victory Monument. A nationwide minute of silence was also observed, while Azerbaijani state institutions issued messages commemorating those killed in the war.

The contrasting commemorations came six years after Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive along the line of contact in Artsakh, also known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, on Sept. 27, 2020.

The fighting lasted 44 days and ended with a trilateral statement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on Nov. 9, 2020. Thousands of Armenians were killed, and Armenia lost control of large areas in and around Artsakh.

The consequences of the war continued in the years that followed. In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched another military offensive in Artsakh after a monthslong blockade of the Lachin Corridor. More than 120,000 ethnic Armenians subsequently fled to Armenia, effectively ending the region’s centuries-old Armenian civilian presence.

The anniversary also sparked controversy over Armenian Public Television’s decision to broadcast an entertainment concert by popular singer Tata Simonyan on Sept. 27. The broadcaster apologized the following day, calling the decision a mistake.

But two days after the anniversary, there has been no similar acknowledgment from Pashinyan.

His official website lists no Sept. 27 statement about the war, and his most recent entry under “Statements and Messages” remains his Sept. 24 address to the U.N. General Assembly.

Six years after a war that transformed Armenia and ultimately preceded the loss of Artsakh’s Armenian population, Sept. 27 passed without a commemorative message from the country’s prime minister and any government member.

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