On 8 June, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan fired the chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Army and the head of the Police and National Security Service (NSS) amid the worsening coronavirus crisis in the country. He thanked Lieutenant General Artak Davtyan and national police chief Arman Sargsyan and NSS director Eduard Martirosyan for their work.

The Prime Minister later announced that they had been dismissed for violating or failing to enforce the coronavirus emergency regulations in Armenia. Sargsyan and Martirosyan have been chief of police and director of the NSS since September last year.

Pashinyan said Sargsyan will be replaced by another police colonel, Vahe Ghazaryan, while Martirosyan's successor will be Argishti Kyaramyan, who was recently appointed deputy.

The 29-year-old Kyaramyan headed a government agency to fight corruption until last month. Unlike his predecessor, he has never worked in Armenia's most powerful security service before. Kyaramyan was widely regarded as a potential political candidate.

The new chief of staff of the Armenian army is Lieutenant General Onik Gasparyan, who was previously Davtyan's first deputy. Pashinyan confirmed that Davtyan was dismissed because he was holding his son's wedding party on Sunday despite the state of emergency. Davtyan was appointed chief of staff of the army shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 2018, which brought Pashinyan to power.

The opposition media have pointed out that the new chief of the General Staff Gasparyan, like Pashinyan, comes from the Idjevan region. The new chief of police, Vahe Ghazaryan, was a childhood friend of the PM.

The dismissals come after a growing number of opposition politicians accuse Pashinyan of failing to effectively fight the coronavirus and demand his resignation. The Prime Minister's political allies reject such calls.