The Armenian Ministry of Defense denies an increase in non-combat losses.
In 2026, 11 people died in the armed forces of Armenia, more than half of them due to suicide, and three cases are related to non-statutory relations, the Ministry of Defense stated.
"Caucasian Knot" reported that at the end of June, the Investigative Committee of Armenia reported on the initiation of a criminal case in connection with the death of a contract serviceman. The Investigative Committee of Armenia accused the detainees of driving the soldier to suicide.
Earlier, human rights defenders called on the Armenian authorities to pay more attention to the prevention of crimes and suicides in the army. They pointed out that the share of non-combat losses among Armenian servicemen reached 90%.
In the Armed Forces of Armenia, 11 cases of death were recorded in 2026, 5 of which were among conscript servicemen, reported the press secretary of the Armenian Ministry of Defense, Aram Torosyan.
Each case is subject to separate analysis and discussion. "The Ministry of Defense is the only structure that also publishes cases of death of its members under circumstances unrelated to service. That is, we will not find any other structure where an employee or serviceman of that structure, for example, died suddenly at home, became a victim of a traffic accident, or died due to illness, and this data would be made public at the end of the year," he said, as quoted by Armenpress.
According to him, the statistics published in previous years have been a reason for various manipulations. "In the press, one can often find publications stating that 30 cases of death were recorded in the army over the year, but no one notes how many of these 30 cases occurred specifically in the army, which of them are service-related and how many are not service-related. Even if the cases of death are service-related, are all of them murders and suicides or not?" the press secretary of the Ministry of Defense noted.
He emphasized that discussions about an increase in the number of deaths in the army are not substantiated by the statistics available to the Ministry of Defense. "If we talk about the reporting period of this year, then this year we had 11 cases of death, of which only 5 were conscript servicemen. We had cases of death due to illness, due to a mine explosion, and regarding the cases of suicide that occurred this year, I must note that only 3 occurred, so to speak, under circumstances related to service," Torosyan said.
According to him, preliminary information regarding some cases of suicide and driving to suicide shows that their share is related to personal and other reasons that are not a result of non-statutory relations. Thus, in 2007, 15 cases of murder, suicide, and driving to suicide were recorded under service-related circumstances, and in 2016, there were 19. "In 2025, not a single case of murder was recorded; 6 cases of death under service-related circumstances were recorded, of which, if I am not mistaken, two were cases of driving to suicide," Torosyan noted.
According to him, out of the 11 cases of death recorded in the reporting period of 2026, 2 occurred under service-related circumstances. He noted that 2 cases of murder, 2 cases of driving to suicide, and 4 cases of suicide were recorded. "But out of these 6, that is, cases of suicide and driving to suicide, 3 did not occur due to non-statutory relations," he said.