Tiran Khachatryan on reasons of losing war

In a conversation with ABC Media, National Hero of Armenia, Lt. Gen. Tiran Khachatryan referred to the 44-day war, the problems that came up during and after it, the reasons for our defeat and other issues. 

“In general, when war is declared, the person in the driving seat of the country must arrange and carry out those actions. However, in this regard, we did not observe the law: The head of the country does not have the right to become the supreme commander and take command over the armed forces, when the country is not in a state of war. He took this command into his own hands, and everything that was done back then, was done within his own managerial skills,” Khachatryan noted.

According to Khachatryan, the tasks that the command is set, include collection and analysis of information, defining tasks, their allocation and seeing to their fulfillment.  

“Of course, the Armed Forces did all in their powers to perform these tasks, but interference in that process is a different story. Unfortunately, at that time, we faced problems mainly in those areas where the correct order was not preserved; and those areas were, of course, many in number at that time. They did not know what war is and what should have been done in such situations. They interfered, trying to show that they were doing something, making things worse,” he said. 

Tiran Khachatryan notes that in many cases, conflicting information played an important role as well. 

“The pieces of information that were not to spread, in fact, came out into the open. In the Armed Forces, it is clearly defined what can be announced, when and by whom? However, there were people who had somehow appeared there and were interfering with the situation,” he noted.

With regard to the information that Armenia did not have weapons to fight, Khachatryan said: “If we are talking about modern weapons, we lacked them. However, the claims that the weapons at our disposal were ‘90s weapons, are false. There were weapons, and it is of no importance whether they were old or new. If they are designed to be used in combat, then we could use them,” Khachatryan said.

Referring to orders not to fight and to retreat, he noted that none of the military leaders gave such orders.

“No military officer gave an order not to fight. As for the weapons, I should say that there are certain weapons that can be used only by order of the supreme commander. And even the command of the Armed Forces does not have the right to use them without the supreme commander’s order,” he said.

As Khachatryan noted, the ratio of forces and means was never in our favor, and with regard to war, what really matters is not means and ratios, but economy, external support, etc.

“We have also lost in the fields of economy, diplomacy and in the matter of allies. While, Azerbaijan not only had allies, but also soldiers from different armies involved in its armed forces,” Khachatryan noted.