One of the misinformation is related to Shushi [city of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)]; many say that Shushi was simply surrendered. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this Monday, during his online press conference, and referring to the question whether the Armenian side was demanded to hand over Shushi to end the recent Artsakh war, which side had made such a demand, and what proposals had been made by Russia and Azerbaijan to end the war.

Nikol Pashinyan said the following in this regard: "In the morning I read the Artsakh President’s [social media] post where it is said that as a result of those works, the bodies of more than 100 of our soldiers were found in Shushi. If Shushi was surrendered, by whose order did those soldiers fight or why did they fight?

Moreover, it was heard from the political platforms that there are concrete data, names who are ready to prove that a conspiratorial decision has been made in connection with Shushi. I would like to inform that the law enforcement agencies have called the author of that statement and tried to get specific information from him who the conspirators are, what conspiracy it is about, and how it happened. As far as I know, the author of that statement avoided giving specific answers. The conclusion from this is the following: If there is betrayal and someone claims to have specific information about the betrayal and then, in fact, refuses to give specific information, it means, in fact, participation in the treachery. If someone says that he does not trust the law enforcement agencies, that is why he does not announce, let him publicly announce who have made that statement and what really happened. But in reality, what was officially announced has happened. Unfortunately, yes, first with subversive groups, then continuously in groups, the city was penetrated and, unfortunately, we lost Shushi."

Also, the Armenian PM added: "I spoke about a nuance during the war, and cited the example of 2011, that whenever a compromise option became acceptable to the Armenian side, that option became unacceptable for Azerbaijan at the same time. It is very important to realize whether we could have avoided the war. Yes, we could, if we agreed to hand over 7 regions to Azerbaijan, including Shushi. But was that the policy we wanted to pursue? No it was not.

The Artsakh Defense Army, the government of the Republic of Armenia, and our armed forces decided to accept those challenges posed to Armenia. Unfortunately, this did not bring the desired results. But also because that word of inevitability of defeat has been on the front lines since day one.

The politicians who from the first day of the war called for the surrender of territories at the cost of stopping the war today accuse the government of the republic of Armenia of treason for the same thing.

Now there is no difference between sooner and later in terms of content. Yes, the condition of handing over Shushi was set, if not from the beginning, then in the initial period. Why did we, the Artsakh authorities, go this way? As long as there was even a theoretical opportunity to defend all that, the Defense Army, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia decided to fight to the end, and they fought heroically until the last second. But unfortunately, we could not solve that problem. Yes, we are responsible for that because in the past 2.5 years, we have not been able to make up for which has not been done for decades; yes, we are responsible for that."

Pashinyan denied the allegations that Russian peacekeepers were being sent to Armenia already a few days before the fall of Shushi. "There is no such thing, it is absolutely baseless information. The peacekeepers started moving after the statement was signed," he said.

To the question whether it is true that various documents were put on his table at various stages of the war, and according to some people, all of them were more favorable than the November 9 statement, Nikol Pashinyan answered: "As for the various documents, no such thing has happened. There was the same logic of ending the war as before the start of the war, that these territories, including Shushi, should be handed over to Azerbaijan, and without any status; this was the case before the war, too. This has been the case since 2016, and the April [2016] war was the last ‘bell’ in this story. The difference is that this time it would not be possible to stop the war with any verbal statement or commitment.

What was our most important mistake? Since 1998, there has been only one topic in the negotiation content, which has been very specific and measurable: that is, the territories must be handed over to Azerbaijan. Our policy has been to prolong this process, to procrastinate. Yes, time can be extended to one year, 5 years, 10 years, 15-20 years. Yes, the ‘rubber’ can be stretched 4 meters, 5 meters, but that ‘rubber’ is cut at an X moment. That ‘rubber’ had already been cut by the April 2016 war. When I was saying a ‘new point,’ I meant we have to try to break the logic of that cut ‘rubber’ and get ourselves out. We failed to do that. When that failed, and in fact the military threat came to the fore, we did everything in this short period of time. I'm not saying that 100 percent of what could have been done was done, but that was our focus, and the events of July 2020 showed that we are ready for war with Azerbaijan.

But later a large number of mercenary terrorists and Turkey became involved in the war; this became the reason for our failure. Could we have prevented such a development? Yes, if we agreed to hand over those regions without the status of Artsakh. We decided to try to fight and get more favorable conditions as a result.

During that struggle, many of the forces that today accuse us of treason told us that we need to surrender. We were saying, ‘No, we will not surrender as long as there is at least one percent theoretical, practical possibility that the Defense Army can fight and solve a problem.’ When we recorded that there was no such opportunity, we went the other way. At the same time, we have lost practically nothing with it because if we did not do that, it’s all the same, we would have lost, 25-30 thousand soldiers would have been under a blockade."