Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin has addressed an open letter to Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan regarding scandalous remarks made by former Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan regarding the Battle of Stalingrad.
“Amid the deep respect for Victory Day, the Armenian people have expressed widespread indignation over the historically inaccurate and sacrilegious statements made by the former official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, Artsrun Hovhannisyan, with the actual justification of the aggression of Hitler’s Germany, voiced by him on this sacred occasion on the main TV channel of the country. It was especially painful to hear such statements from someone who currently leads the Command and Staff Institute of the Military Academy of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia—an institution that bears the name of the renowned commander of the Great Patriotic War, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal Bagramyan.
It is difficult to interpret such an act as anything other than an attempt to desecrate the memory of our heroic ancestors, who thwarted Hitler’s plans to enslave and annihilate the peoples of the USSR and ultimately saved humanity from the ‘brown plague,’” the Russian Ambassador’s letter reads.
Hovhannisyan had stated on Public TV that the victory of Nazi Germany would have been “more beneficial” for Armenia. According to him, the Battle of Stalingrad prevented Operation Gertrude, which envisioned an invasion of Turkey involving Armenian legions after Germany captured the Caucasus. “If that had happened, Germans from Armenia and Bulgaria would have invaded and taken over Turkey, and this plan also envisioned the creation of a united historical Armenia,” he said.
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