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On Wednesday, the Armenian Investigative Committee announced that criminal proceedings against three people on charges of organising a coup in Armenia were sent to the supervising prosecutor with a motion to approve it and send it to the court for examination.
The criminal proceedings against the three were launched in preparation for the usurpation of power. If found guilty, they face up to 15 years imprisonment.
The three detainees, named only as S. G., Ye. S., and A. M., were originally arrested in September 2024, after Yerevan accused a group of people of training Armenians at a military base in Russia to overthrow Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government.
According to local media, S.G. is reportedly Serob Gasparyan, the president of the Sev Hovaz (Black Leopard) military-patriotic organisation, which participated in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Back then, criminal prosecution was initiated against seven people, with a search warrant declared against the other four.
According to the Armenian authorities, over the course of 2024, this group recruited an undisclosed number of Armenian citizens and former residents of Nagorno-Karabakh under the pretext of undergoing training sessions in Russia, along with a monthly stipend of ₽220,000 ($2,500). The recruits were told that these trainings would teach them how to use heavy weaponry, and that upon returning to Armenia, they would be able to utilise their new skills in carrying out combat duty, as well as in training others.
Once the recruits were transferred to Russia, they reportedly underwent preliminary checks, including a polygraph test, ‘in order to find out their personal characteristics and political views, and their relationship with Armenian law enforcement bodies’.
If they passed this initial test, the recruits were then deployed at the Russian Arbat Battalion’s military base to undergo combat training.
Arbat is a pro-Russian paramilitary group consisting of mostly ethnic Armenians, many of whom were also reportedly former members of the Wagner mercenary group, which was founded following the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It was only at this point that the recruits were told the actual goal of the training sessions — ‘to return to the Republic of Armenia and remove the current authority’.
Reportedly, a number of recruits refused to take part in the training sessions and instead returned to Armenia.
Yerevan accuses group of training Armenians in Russia to oust Pashinyan
Yerevan has accused a group of people of training Armenians at a military base in Russia to oust Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government. Armenia’s Investigative Committee on Wednesday announced the arrest of three people and the inclusion of four others on a wanted list. They stated that the…
Arshaluys Barseghyan
On Wednesday, the Investigative Committee reported that all three under arrest, along with others whose identities have not yet been clarified, ‘intentionally created conditions for seizing the power of Armenia’.
The Armenian Public TV reported that the founder of the Arbat Battalion, Armen Sargsyan, was involved in creating those conditions.
Arbat founder recently killed in Moscow
Sargsyan died in hospital after being injured in an explosion at a Moscow apartment complex on 3 February.
The following day, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS wrote that the explosion may have been the result of a suicide bombing.
In a 21 February article, Russian state-run media outlet RT cited a source ‘close to the investigation’ as saying that the body of a suspected bomber was found at the site of the explosion, with other news reports suggesting that the bomber was an Armenian citizen.
RT additionally reported that two Armenian citizens had been detained in Russia in connection with the murder of Sargsyan, with Russian authorities primarily considering that Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) could have been behind Sargsyan’s murder.
Russia detains two Armenians over assassination of Armenian-Russian militia leader in Moscow
The Armenian-born founder of the pro-Russian paramilitary group Arbat, Armen Sargsyan, died as a result of an explosion in February.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
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