Hovhannisyan, who led the national police and served as deputy interior minister from 2023 to 2025, replaces Major General Ashot Zakaryan, Armenpress reported Monday afternoon. The trigger is public: a soldier’s non-combat death, treated as a suspected hazing-related suicide, after which Pashinyan announced changes in the military police and the army’s moral and psychological support service on 13 August and demanded personal accountability.
The appointment extends a wider rebuild. Alen Simonyan moved from the speaker's chair to the Security Council secretariat on 13 August, replacing Armen Grigoryan, in the post since 2018, with Ruben Rubinyan taking the chamber earlier in the month.
India's defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh spent a second day in Yerevan on Monday: a meeting with defence minister Suren Papikyan, then an exchange with chief of the general staff Edward Asryan of what Armenpress called a new framework for cooperation between the two general staffs. Indian agency reporting adds a memorandum on defence-industrial research and joint production signed with high-tech industry minister Davit Tadevosyan. Neither text has surfaced in the two capitals’ published accounts.
The trigger is public: a soldier’s non-combat death, treated as a suspected hazing-related suicide.
The Russian layer of the file stayed quiet. Four employees of Gazprom Armenia were arrested on 14 August in a bribery case, and through Tuesday morning no reaction from Gazprom, the Kremlin or the Russian foreign ministry had surfaced on the wires. The silence is 4 days old.
The clock that matters next is domestic: the government is due to put its programme before the new parliament by about 24 August, and the cabinet session expected Thursday is the likely venue.