.
Early life Ohanyan was born in the town of
Shusha, then in the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the
Azerbaijan SSR in the
Soviet Union. In 1979, he completed high school in the village of
Mrgashen, in the Nairi district of the
Armenian SSR (now located in the
Kotayk province of Armenia).
Soviet military career and Karabakh war Ohanyan attended the
Baku Higher Joint Command College and completed his studies there in 1983. He subsequently served with the
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, first as a platoon commander and from March 1987 as a company commander. In June 1988 he was transferred to the
Transcaucasian Military District's 23rd Motor-Rifle Division based in
Kirovabad, Azerbaijan and was appointed motor-rifle company commander of the
366th Motor Rifle Regiment based in
Stepanakert; he became deputy battalion commander in August 1989 and 2nd battalion commander within the same regiment in September 1990. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the 366th regiment was pulled out of Stepanakert in March 1992 and Ohanyan joined
Nagorno-Karabakh's newly formed army, playing a major role in the
First Nagorno-Karabakh war against
Azerbaijan. He was seriously wounded in action near
Chldran,
Martakert district in September 1992, with his leg amputated as a result. Following treatment, Ohanyan rejoined the military.
Military career (1994–2007) After the war, he served as deputy commander of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army from 1994 to 1998, commander of
Armenia's 5th Army Corps from 1998 to 1999 and
Defence Minister of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1999 to 2007. Ohanyan was promoted to major general in 1995, lieutenant general in 2000 and colonel general in 2007. In May 2007, Ohanyan was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence of
Armenia.
Defence minister After
Serzh Sargsyan took office as President of Armenia, he appointed Ohanyan as Minister of Defence on 14 April 2008. During Ohanyan's time as Defence Minister, Armenian forces fought with Azerbaijan in the
Four-Day War of April 2016, which was the worst outbreak of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh after the
1994 ceasefire and before the
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. He was dismissed from his post in October 2016.
Opposition politician (2017) In February 2017, Ohanyan formed a political coalition with opposition politicians
Vartan Oskanian and
Raffi Hovannisian and their respective political parties to participate in the
2017 Armenian parliamentary election. The "
Ohanian-Raffi-Oskanian" alliance received 32,508 votes in the 2017 election, failing to reach the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament. In 2019 and 2020, Ohanyan was called several times to answer the questions of the Armenian parliament's investigative committee on the Four-Day War.
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and aftermath Ohanyan went to Nagorno-Karabakh to command Armenian forces after the start of the
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War in September 2020. Although Armenian and Artsakh authorities reported that Ohanyan commanded Armenian forces during the
four-day battle for Shusha (which ended in the capture of the town by Azerbaijani forces), Ohanyan himself later denied this, stating that he only led a detachment of 16 men during the battle. The
Azerbaijani Army claimed that they had wounded Ohanyan during the battle, a claim which was denied by the spokesperson of the
President of Artsakh. On 11 November, the Baku Military Court initiated a criminal case against him in absentia with the charge of "genocide". Azerbaijan's
Ministry of Internal Affairs also put him on their international wanted list. After the end of the war, Ohanyan joined a number of officials in calling for the resignation of Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan, saying that "the independence of the Republic of Armenia, the inviolability of its borders, and the physical existence of the population are endangered" should he not leave.
2021 Armenian parliamentary election On 5 February 2021, Ohanyan announced his intention to participate in potential snap elections. He participated in the
2021 Armenian parliamentary election as a member of the
Armenia Alliance, an electoral coalition led by ex-president Robert Kocharyan. Ohanyan currently leads the Armenia Alliance's parliamentary bloc in the National Assembly of Armenia. == Legal issues ==