Early life and career David Tonoyan was born on 27 December 1967 in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk (now
Oskemen,
Kazakhstan), in the
East Kazakhstan Region of the
Kazakh SSR. He is the grandson of Hovhannes Hakobov, a veteran of the
Red Army who took part in the
Second World War. In 1986, he joined the
Soviet Armed Forces's
Transcaucasian Military District. He moved to Yerevan to attend
Yerevan State University, which he graduated from in 1991. He entered the
Armed Forces of Armenia in 1992.
Defence minister Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan appointed Tonoyan as defence minister on 11 May 2018, three days after Pashinyan took office. In late August 2020, Tonoyan proposed the creation of a national
militia in light of the
July 2020 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes, in order to prepare the society to threats of military nature. The Ministry of Defence under his leadership introduced a draft law into the
National Assembly creating the militia, which would be open to both men and women and people up to the age of 70, as well as would be organized under local governments, potentially including up to 100,000 members.
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and resignation In March 2019, at a gathering of Armenian community representatives in New York, Tonoyan declared that "I, as the Defence Minister, say that the option of return of ‘territories for peace’ will no longer exist, and I have re-formulated it into ’new territories in the event of a new war’", criticizing the
Madrid Principles which envisioned the peaceful return of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control. This statement, later popularized as "new war for new territories", was widely criticized and regarded as one of the provocations that ruled out negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh and later caused
Second Nagorno-Karabakh war, which resulted in Azerbaijan taking control of the
territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh,
Shusha,
Hadrut region,
Madagiz,
Talish and other parts of the former
NKAO. After the
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement was signed, he denied rumors he sold arms to pro-Turkish militants in
Syria via a private company, allegations of which appeared in the Armenian media. Related accusations that were also denied was the claim that it turned down an offer to purchase body armor jackets from Russia as well as the claim that Tonoyan was in the
Maldives to attend a relative’s birthday party when the war started. On 20 November 2020 he tendered his resignation. In his farewell address, he apologized to those who lost loved ones during the war.
Arrest On 30 September 2021, Tonoyan was arrested by the
National Security Service of Armenia and accused of fraud and embezzlement causing nearly 2.3 billion Armenian drams ($4.7 million) worth of damage to the state together with arms dealer Davit Galstyan. == Personal life ==