Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with several dozen representatives of volunteer groups that participated in the Artsakh war. Greeting the guests, the Premier said: “Dear brothers, I am glad for this meeting. As agreed, we are meeting today with representatives of groups and detachments that went to the frontline as volunteers or as part of mobilized groups and detachments that have proposed or expressed a desire to hold such a meeting or discussion in various formats. Today’s discussion is important for me, and I believe that we will have a long conversation, since we need to analyze and understand a lot of things together.

At least some of you have spoken out in public. I would like to say that I have read them, if not all, then at least a number of your comments. I think there are a lot of important issues and important points made there, and getting answers to these questions is important for all of us, for society, for the future in order to analyze what happened. And I hope there will be that conversation today. But we need to use this conversation more to build plans for the future.

I think that today our conversation should focus on the future, even if we are talking about the distant or not so distant past. Because, after all, the most important indicator of crowning this conversation with a specific outcome and leading to a specific destination is that we must in any case state that our conversation must be about the future.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your services to the Motherland, the Republic of Armenia. I would like to say that I highly appreciate your service, I also highly appreciate your civic position, I appreciate your readiness to put the truth above all, especially in situations where the truth is bitter, sometimes dangerous. I think that in any case we should have the will to hold to the truth, we must have determination, but also, on the other hand, we must be as careful as possible along the way, so as not to cause irreparable harm to ourselves. Thank you and I am pleased to listen to you.”

The volunteers thanked the Prime Minister for the opportunity to meet with him and stressed the importance of contacts in this format for joint discussion of the post-war situation and the shared vision of the future. They referred to the problems faced during the Artsakh war, and presented proposals for possible solutions.

The Prime Minister answered a number of questions of interest to the volunteers, which bore on the cases of desertion and betrayal during the war, developments around the Artsakh issue, the army building, the reform of the education system, the model of patriotic education, the introduction of the volunteer work component in various spheres of public life, the efficiency of state institutions, the fight against disinformation, the country’s political, economic and social development, and other topics.