Seyran Ohanyan

Ohanyan was born in the town of Shusha, then a part of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union. In 1979, he completed high school in the village of Mrgashen, in the region of Nairi in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.[1]

Ohanyan attended the Baku Higher Joint Command College and completed his studies there in 1983. He subsequently served with the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, as platoon commander and from March 1987, as company commander. In June 1988 he was transferred to the Transcaucasus Military District's 23rd Motor-Rifle Division based in Kirovabad, Azerbaijan and was appointed motor-rifle company commander of the 366th Motor-Rifle Regiment based in Stepanakert; he became deputy battalion commander in August 1989 and 2nd battalion commander with the same regiment in September 1990.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, 366th regiment was pulled out of Stepanakert in March 1992 and Ohanyan joined Nagorno-Karabakh's newly formed army, playing a major role in the First Nagorno-Karabakh war against Azerbaijan.[1] He was seriously wounded in action near Chldran, Mardakert district in September 1992, with his leg amputated as a result. Following treatment, Ohanyan re-joined the military.

After the war, he was Deputy Commander of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army from 1994 to 1998, commander of Armenia's 5th Army Corps from 1998 to 1999 and the Defence Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1999 to 2007. Ohanyan was promoted to Maj. General in 1995, Lt. General in 2000 and Col. General in 2007.

In May 2007, Ohanyan was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defense of Armenia.

After Serzh Sargsyan took office as President of Armenia, he appointed Ohanyan as Minister of Defense on 14 April 2008.[2][3] During Ohanyan's time as Defence Minister, Armenian forces fought with Azerbaijan in the Four-Day War of April 2016, which was the worst outbreak of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh after the 1994 ceasefire and before the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. He was dismissed from his post in October 2016.

In February 2017, Ohanyan formed a political coalition with opposition politicians Vartan Oskanian and Raffi Hovannisian and their respective political parties to participate in the 2017 Armenian parliamentary election. The "Ohanian-Raffi-Oskanian" alliance received 32,508 votes in the 2017 election, failing to reach the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament.[4]

In 2019 and 2020, Ohanyan was called several times to answer the questions of the Armenian parliament's investigative committee on the Four-Day War.[5] In January 2019, he was charged with "overthrowing the constitutional order" in relation to the 2008 Armenian presidential election protests, when army and police forces suppressed mass protests against the election results, resulting in the deaths of 10 people; Ohanyan was serving as Chief of General Staff at the time. He is being tried along with former president Robert Kocharyan, general Yuri Khachaturov, and former security council secretary Armen Gevorgyan, although the trial was delayed in September 2020 due to Ohanyan's participation in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.[6][7] In March 2020, he was charged with embezzlement of state funds during his tenure as defence minister. Ohanyan denies all charges.[8]

Ohanyan went to Nagorno-Karabakh to command Armenian forces after the start of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War in September 2020. He commanded Armenian forces in a four-day battle over Shusha, which resulted in an Azerbaijani victory.[9] The Azerbaijani Army claimed that during the battle, they had wounded Ohanyan, a claim which was denied by the spokesperson of the President of Artsakh.[10] On 11 November, the Baku Military Court initiated a criminal case against him in absentia with the charge of "genocide". Azerbaijan's Ministry of Internal Affairs also put him on their international wanted list.[11][12] After the war, he joined a number of officials in calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, saying that "the independence of the Republic of Armenia, the inviolability of its borders, and the physical existence of the population are endangered", should he not leave.[13]