Andranik Kocharyan, chair of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security Affairs of the National Assembly of Armenia, announced on Public Television of Armenia on September 6, 2024, that the Inquiry Committee for Studying the Circumstances of the Hostilities Unleashed on September 27, 2020, had completed its work. The committee's conclusion was ready and would be presented in a closed session of the National Assembly in October. According to Kocharyan, the public would only be able to access select parts of the report, as the full text contains confidential information.

A bit of background: The parliament’s Inquiry Committee was established in February 2022, at the initiative of the MPs of the ruling political majority, and was primarily composed of members of the ruling party and its extra-parliamentary supporters. The parliamentary opposition had minimal representation, which led the "Armenia" and "With Honor" opposition factions to boycott the committee's work, claiming it was formed by the government “to stage” the authorities' innocence.

In general, within a parliamentary government system, the creation of Inquiry Committees in the parliament is typically a tool for opposition forces. Common sense suggests that authorities cannot impartially investigate their own actions, especially when the government has publicly acknowledged its role as the "number one" culprit and "number one" responsible for the disastrous consequences of the 44-day war. If we consider the biased approach of the committee chairman — a stance well-known to the public — it becomes clear that the opposition had little reason to participate in Andranik’s committee.

Now, no matter how much the individual on Public Television of Armenia tries to convince the public that a thorough investigation into the causes of the war was carried out — with tens of thousands of documents reviewed, interviews conducted, and so on — it is clear that no one has bought it and that even the party faithful are merely pretending out of team loyalty to believe it.

During the prolonged work of the Inquiry Committee, which lasted two and a half years, we saw military and political leaders of the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh, military commanders, and government representatives invited to the sessions to answer questions. Even the person occupying the seat of the prime minister expressed his willingness to be "investigated." For him, this platform may have been a convenient opportunity to delve into the events of the 1990s and early 2000s—periods not directly related to the circumstances of the 44-day war—and to once again present his convoluted vision of the nearly thirty-year Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process, which he has shared on numerous occasions.

Let’s move to the most critical question: could the 44-day war, with all its tragic consequences, have been avoided? Wars are often the result of political and diplomatic failures. In our case, the inevitability of war was obvious, even to the naked eye, as we were warned about it through both public and private channels. Recall the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) Summit in Yerevan on October 1, 2019, where the leaders of various countries cautioned Pashinyan about what was coming for Armenia. Also, remember the detailed description of the impending war published on the Collective Security Treaty Organization's (CSTO) official website. Even Lady Gaga's clip for "911" contained an ominous warning.

No conclusions were drawn, and as a result of criminal negligence, hundreds of soldiers became casualties in the first minutes of the war because they were not evacuated from the frontline barracks. Meanwhile, Armenia’s minister of defense was attending a relative’s birthday celebration abroad as an honored guest. It is intriguing if this tragic episode is documented in Andranik’s committee report.