In Yerevan, noisy but small meetings of the non-systemic opposition with demands for resignation of Premier Minister Nikol Pashinyan are taking place almost every day. One of the most outraged street groups is the nationalist party of Sasna Tsrer (The Sasun Brave) founded in autumn 2018. The core of the party consists of members of the namesake armed group which took a Police Patrol-Guard Service regiment hostage in Yerevan in July 2016 during protests against then-president Serge Sargsyan. As a result of the group’s attack at the PGS, policemen died.
Today nationalists call Armenians for “a fight for Armenia” standing against Russia, Nikol Pashinyan, and the systemic opposition. In an interview to Patrick Lancaster, an American journalist working in Yerevan, members of Sasna Tsrer said that “Russia occupied Armenia” and didn’t help Armenians during the Second Karabakh War. “We don’t need such help. It’s not help, it’s occupation… We want go to Europe, the West, civilization… Armenia’s history is more than three thousand years… We are fighting for three thousand years… We are against Russian fascism…,” demonstrators said.
Internet users commented Lancaster’s report:
“Three thousand years of betrayal, laziness, and malice led Armenia to self-destruction.”
“Three thousand years, and you still haven’t learnt how to live with other people.”
“I haven’t seen them in videos from Karabakh last autumn.”
“During the war, Europeans did nothing to help…”
