Davit Manukyan

Davit Manukyan is an Armenian major general and career military officer who served for three decades in the Armed Forces of Armenia and the Artsakh Defense Army. Born in Jermuk, he entered military service during the first Artsakh war and went on to hold a series of command and staff positions in both Armenia and Artsakh.

Manukyan became one of the senior officers of the Artsakh Defense Army and was appointed First Deputy Commander of the Defense Army. He held that position during one of the most difficult periods in Artsakh’s modern history, including the 2020 Artsakh War and its aftermath. He received the rank of major general and retired from active military service in 2022 after approximately three decades in uniform.

Despite his retirement, Azerbaijan treated his former military role as the basis for criminal prosecution. Following Azerbaijan’s September 2023 attack and the forced displacement of Artsakh’s Armenian population, Manukyan left Artsakh for Armenia together with Ruben Vardanyan. Both were traveling in the same car when Azerbaijani forces stopped them at the illegal checkpoint near the Hakari Bridge in the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor, took them hostage and transferred them to Baku.

He was placed in the mass sham trial against former Artsakh political and military leaders and accused of terrorism and other crimes based largely on his service in the Artsakh Defense Army. In 2026, the Baku Military Court illegally sentenced Manukyan to life imprisonment, and the Baku Court of Appeals later upheld the sentence. He remains an illegally held Armenian hostage in Azerbaijan.