Svytlana KUSHNYR, political analyst (Ukraine)
On September 18, 2026, in Wiesbaden, Germany, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan was awarded the Hessian Peace Prize for „his efforts for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the South Caucasus“. We are talking about the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have been in conflict over Karabakh for the past 30 years.
In 2020, as a result of the Second Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the authorities in Baku regained control over a significant part of the internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories, and in 2023 — over all of Karabakh.
In the summer of 2025, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, represented by President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, laid the foundation for the final end to the long-standing confrontation, signing a joint declaration mediated by US President Donald Trump.
Although the end of the conflict was the result of political will and compromises on both sides, the award was awarded and presented only to Pashinyan. The Armenian prime minister made a special trip to Germany and accepted the award, pretending not to notice the jury's one-sided approach.
„I also want to express my gratitude to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who equally deserves this award“, Pashinyan briefly noted his partner in reconciliation during his speech.
The decision to award the Hessian Prize contrasts particularly sharply with other international awards, where Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation was seen as a joint achievement of the authorities in Baku and Yerevan.
In February 2026, Aliyev and Pashinyan jointly received the “Zayd“ Prize for Human Fraternity - the award included an international jury and a cash fund of $1 million. In April this year, — The „Guernica“ Award for Peace and Reconciliation.
The administration of the Hessian Prize ignored this international context and deleted Azerbaijan from the general formula for peace, turning the bilateral political achievement into a personal merit of Nikol Pashinyan.
Separately, the organizers noted the democratic transformations in Armenia, stating that Pashinyan “continually leads the process of democratic reforms“ and is making “tireless efforts to establish democratic institutions in the country“. However, the indisputable facts speak to the contrary — the criminal prosecution of the opposition in Armenia has reached its peak, and during the parliamentary elections on June 7, 2026, European observers identified a number of significant violations.
”The election campaign was extremely confrontational, accompanied by divisive rhetoric”, stated the special coordinator and head of the short-term observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Farah Karimi.
According to her, there were also “accusations of vote-buying and other violations of electoral legislation“. “The concentration of arrests and prosecutions against opposition representatives contributed to the formation of the perception of electoral justice“, Karimi also noted.
The pressure on the election campaign is evidenced by the statistics of the Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia itself: from February 7 to June 7, 2026, 210 criminal cases related to the elections were opened, and criminal prosecutions were initiated against 349 people. Separately, the Anti-Corruption Committee of Armenia reported 194 detainees in the last weeks of the campaign, 84 of whom are in prison or under house arrest on charges of vote-buying, which the opposition denies.
On June 6, the day before the parliamentary elections, the Armenian authorities initiated criminal cases against as many as six candidates from the political bloc “Strong Armenia“, which was the main rival of Nikol Pashinyan's ruling party. At least four were subsequently arrested. But despite the detention of its candidates, the bloc came in second place in the elections, receiving 23% of the vote and 29 seats in parliament.
A month later, on July 6, the authorities detained another opposition leader — the chairman of “Prosperous Armenia“ - oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan. The next day, the court remanded him in custody for two months on charges of fraud on a particularly large scale and money laundering.
On August 25, law enforcement authorities detained the former pro-Russian president of the country (1998-2008) and leader of the parliamentary bloc “Armenia“ Robert Kocharyan and his son Sedrak. Robert Kocharyan was charged with abuse of office, taking bribes in particularly large amounts, and money laundering.
By the beginning of September, Armenian “democracy“ and “human rights“ protection“ had reached their apogee. On September 1, 2026, Armenian security forces carried the seriously ill former Finance Minister Gagik Khachatryan from his home on a stretcher and in this condition delivered him to investigators, and then to court. According to the lawyers, he suffers from a serious spinal disease and experienced severe pain during transportation.
Nevertheless, on September 2, the court left the 71-year-old former minister under arrest for two months. And on September 8, the case began against the leader of the opposition party “Mother Armenia“ Andranik Tevanyan and his associate Aregnaz Manukyan. The court continued the detention of both of them.
At the same time, the state is conducting an unprecedented criminal case against the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which arose against the backdrop of Pashinyan's open war with its leader - Catholicos of Armenia Garegin II. The latter was one of the most consistent critics of the prime minister: he demanded his resignation and blamed his government for losing the Karabakh war in 2020. On February 14, criminal proceedings were initiated against the Catholicos. He was also banned from leaving the country.
Awarding a politician for the development of peace in the entire region — this in itself is nonsense. But it is doubly strange that the administration of the award refers to the “democratic achievements“ of Armenia, which so far represent nothing more than a series of criminal cases, arrests and trials against opposition activists.
In this sense, awarding Nikol Pashinyan does not look like an impartial assessment of the contribution to peace, but like a well-thought-out and shameless political gesture by the European elites towards Armenia because of its geopolitical turn towards the European Union (EU).