On 19 February, the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan with his spouse, Anna Hakobyan and his daughter visited the village Dsegh on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of poet Hovhannes Tumanyan.

Later there was information that the PM visited Dsegh on the helicopter. Prime Minister’s press spokesman Vladimir Karapetian confirmed the information

Iravaban.net decided to learn details on this flight.

In response to our inquiry, the Defense Ministry and National Security Service reported that the both end flight of the PM from Yerevan to Dsegh and back, 1114 kg of aviation fuel was spent, the total sum amounted to 524 thousand 694 AMD .

The crew of the helicopter were military so no additional funds were spent.

Pursuant to Article 6.1 (1) of the RA Law on Security of Persons Subject to Special State Protection “State Protection shall be provide to the Prime Minister in the places of his permanent or temporary locations, in the full scope of state protection measures provided for in Article 4 of this law; and, in accordance with Paragraph 3 of the same Article, during the term of office of the Prime Minister, state protection shall also be provided to the family members living with him as well as to the family members accompanying him.”

Under Article 15 of this law, the protection of state and official secrets in the State Protection Service is carried out in accordance with RA law on state and official secrecy.

The answer also indicates that information on the organizational forms, methods, as well as the necessary forces and resources involved in the security of the Prime Minister are state secrets, and according to Article 8 (1) (1) of the Freedom of Information Law, such information cannot be provided to the press. For this reason, it was not clear who accompanied Nikol Pashinyan.

The prime minister was also asked a question on the trip on helicopters during the March 19 press conference. 

Our question, whether the difference of the trip by the helicopter or the car or its effectiveness from the aspect of resourse saving has been calculated remained without an answer