Protesters Supported by: Armenian government No centralised leadership Nikol Pashinyan Vahagn Khachaturyan Vahe Ghazaryan On 19 September 2023, a series of protests began in Armenia following a military offensive launched by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in a swift Azerbaijani victory over the ethnic Armenian breakaway republic of Artsakh.

The republic had been heavily backed by Armenia until a change in Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's policy towards the region in recent years.

[7] In response, protests erupted in Armenia accusing Pashinyan of mismanaging the crisis and abandoning Artsakh, demanding that he step down.

In September 2023, despite the ongoing presence of Russian peacekeepers in the region, Azerbaijan launched a renewed offensive against Artsakh, emerging victorious after one day and forcing the government of Artsakh to surrender, disband their army, and agree to reintegration talks.

[16] The protesters and police exchanged glass bottles and stun grenades and several of the building's windows were smashed.

[4] The crowd in Republic Square began to number in the thousands with increasing calls for the removal of Pashinyan and for Armenia to intervene militarily, as it did during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.

[5][28] Two unidentified assailants threw some bags of red paint at the gates of the Russian embassy in Yerevan.

Although the government claimed that the move to create additional guarantees for Armenia in response to Azerbaijani aggression, it was also seen as a sign of worsening relations with Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, is wanted by the court on charges of war crimes in the invasion of Ukraine.