Pashinyan: By 2018, instead of an army, Serzh Sargsyan had "a system  for siphoning gasoline and diesel fuel from the tank with a hose"

ArmInfo. "Okay, if you're not coming to the debate, then don't come. Let me show you the army's achievements in armament and equipment in recent years, the engineering work done, and the soldiers' salaries. You'll just have  to put on one of the tightest masks, lest your jaw suddenly drop,"  Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on social media, in response to   remarks made by third President Serzh Sargsyan.

"SS (Serzh Sargsyan) once again tried to create the impression that  in 2018-2020 we disbanded the army, and what happened was a  manifestation of that. Now, a quote from SS's statement, which he  made on April 17, 2018, from the rostrum of the National Assembly,  while running for prime minister. He had previously stated that  Azerbaijan would likely attempt to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue  militarily.

A quote from SS's speech on April 17, 2018: "The next lesson is that  we still have a long way to go to devote the utmost attention to  reforming our armed forces, acquiring new weapons, producing our own  weapons, and, most importantly, always maintaining the high morale of  the Armenian soldier and officer, solving their daily issues, and  strengthening their confidence in the future in the face of any  events."

If even a small part of what you said about the army after 2020 was  true, then in 2018 you should have said something different. You  should have said: "For a very long time, we have prioritized  reforming our armed forces, acquiring new weapons, producing our own  weapons, and, most importantly, always maintaining the high morale of  the Armenian soldier and officer, solving their daily problems, and  strengthening their confidence in the future in the face of any  events."

Why didn't you say that? Because you knew that as of 2018, instead of  an army, you have a system for siphoning gasoline and diesel fuel  from the tank with a hose, not an army.  P.S.: Don't wake him, let  him sleep peacefully," Pashinyan wrote.

It's worth noting that Serzh Sargsyan, speaking on the Imnemnimi  podcast, cited three reasons for the 44- day war in Artsakh in 2020.  "The first, of course, is the avoidance of negotiations and, in fact,  the refusal to negotiate. Furthermore, the negotiators proposed some  kind of incomprehensible solution. And these circumstances led to the  negotiation process ceasing... I think he (the country's leader -  ed.) was unable to fully engage in the negotiations." "Just reading  the documents alone made it difficult to understand where these  documents were leading," Sargsyan noted. The second reason, in his  opinion, was that events had occurred that gave Azerbaijan the  opportunity to justify its initiative to start the war. "The third  circumstance was that Azerbaijani and Turkish intelligence were well  informed about the situation in our army and saw that the army's  combat readiness had noticeably declined," the former president  stated.

When asked whether the war was inevitable, he definitely answered no.  "Looking ahead to whether such an outcome was predictable, I will  unequivocally say no. But already by the second half of 2018, in  2019, I saw problems within our armed forces, I became convinced of  them in 2020, and in August 2020, I stated during a press conference  that military action was imminent," Serzh Sargsyan said.