Court declines Artsakh president`s claim against RA Ministry of  Education and Science 

ArmInfo.  The Yerevan Civil Court of General Jurisdiction, chaired by Judge Ashot Hovhannisyan, dismissed the lawsuit filed by fifth President of Artsakh Samvel Shahramanyan against the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports (MECS) and Nzhdeh Hovsepyan, author of the Armenian history textbook for 9th grade. This information was confirmed by Alexandra Hovsepyan, spokesperson for the civil courts, in an interview with PastInfo.

In early September 2025, ArmInfo reported that Samvel Shahramanyan's  lawyers had filed a lawsuit on his behalf against the MECS and other  responsible officials for defamatory statements contained in the 9th-  grade "History of Armenia" textbook regarding events in Artsakh  between the fall of 2020 and the fall of 2023. As lawyer Roman  Yeritsyan reported on his Facebook page, they intend to demand a  retraction of the false information about the president contained in  the textbook. Specifically, Yeritsyan explained, this concerns  statements such as "Samvel Shahramanyan signed the decree on the  dissolution of Artsakh" and "Shahramanyan is the one who surrendered  the NKR." The lawyer is convinced that the Armenian authorities  intend to shift responsibility for the surrender of the  Nagorno-Karabakh Republic onto the Artsakh leadership. In rebuttal,  Shakhramanyan demands that the court compel the defendants to publish  the following text by all possible means, including by including a  rebuttal in the curriculum: "The following information, reflected  under the heading "De-Armenization of Nagorno-Karabakh" in Chapter  5.3 of the 9th-grade Armenian history textbook "The Nagorno-Karabakh  Issue in the International Arena:  Return to War": "The President of  the NKR signed a decree on the dissolution of the NKR", is false and  does not correspond to reality. As a measure to secure the claim, the  lawyer requested a ban on the teaching of a certain section of this  textbook in schools until the final court decision on this case comes  into force.

As a reminder, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan, under the pretext  of an "anti-terrorist operation," initiated a large-scale aggression  against Artsakh, which led to the complete de-Armenization of the  NKR.  This was preceded by a nearly 10-month blockade of the  unrecognized republic. Since the enemy aggression that began in the  fall of 2020, which culminated in the complete ethnic cleansing of  Artsakh in September 2023, over 150,000 Artsakh residents have lost  their homeland and become refugees. In November 2024, Artsakh  Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan reported that 13 Armenians remained in  Artsakh after being forcibly displaced. As Robert Mardini, Director  General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),  noted, these are primarily elderly and disabled people who had no one  to accompany them.

On January 23, 2026, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of  Armenia reported that ten Armenians and one citizen of Armenia of  Russian origin, who remained in Artsakh after the mass exodus of  autumn 2023, were transported to the Republic of Armenia based on  their own requests, which were submitted to the relevant authorities  of Armenia and Azerbaijan.