Not all men “defending the posts” in Amulsar have received notices of military exercises. 

Tert.am news agency published a report on September 13 under the headline “Men from Gndevaz have received notices about a 10-day service”. Reports indicate that a few days ago, a group of men from Gndevaz received notices of a mobilization, informing that there is a military registering and they had to leave for 10 days of service.

From the title, there is an impression that all men in the village of Gndevaz have received notices, while the Fact Investigation Platform has found out that this is not the case.

Starting at 3:14 of the video, the reporter tells that the men have been notified of the upcoming military mobilization.

“ It shouldn’t have been done this way at the moment. We have decided to go down to Yeghegnadzor military commissariat to find out why all the guys from our post should be taken away at once, whereas they could have just taken only a dozen or so (3: 50-4: 05),” notes a man from Gndevaz.

Interestingly, the journalist did not try to find out what the mobilization was about and, most importantly, whether only the citizens of Genevaz had received such a notice.

Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan told Fip.am that thousands of citizens across Armenia had been notified. He also said that the upcoming mobilization had been announced several times and this was nothing new.

Indeed, on September 9, a statement was posted on the official website of the Ministry of Defense about the strategic exercises to be held September 24-October 5,2019,  which will be implemented according to the 2019 Preparation Plan of the RA Armed Forces. State and local self-government bodies are also involved in this exercise. As mentioned in the statement issued by the Ministry, the exercises are aimed at practical review of the implementation and deployment plans of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia; training of the forces and resources involved, providing practical experience in the field of mobilization tasks to the RA state and local self-government bodies as well as RA Armed Forces management; reviewing and adjusting resource capabilities, and harmonizing headquarters operations

Fip.am also contacted the Military Commissariat of Vayots Dzor to find out on what basis the citizens were elected. Head of the Yeghegnadzor Military Committee Armen Hovsepyan told us that notices were sent to 4 citizens from “Amulsar posts” , making up 0.01% of the total.

He assured that nothing was done intentionally.

The selection was made depending on the professions of the people and the professional skills that they had when being demobilized.

“A lot of people from Vayots Dzor have been called. There is no clear intention of calling people from Gndevaz or Jermuk. Only four of their team have been sent a notice of a 10-day service.

But as for the fact that only they were summoned, I repeat, they make up only 0.01% of the attached,” said Hovsepyan. He added that today a meeting is planned with the residents of Gndevaz to discuss and explain the situation.