Karapetyan’s son vows there will be ‘no unsatisfied woman’ in Armenia under their government
Sargis Karapetyan, the son of detained Russian–Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, has suggested there would be ‘no unsatisfied woman’ in Armenia if they formed a government. The comments sparked an outcry in Armenia, with critics accusing him of sexism.
Samvel Karapetyan and his associates have formed a political party, Strong Armenia, which intends to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2026.
The remark was made in the latest episode of the Triangle podcast, released on 31 January, co-hosted by Karapetyan and Levon Sargizov from Samvel Karapetyan’s Our Way team.
The guest of the episode was sociologist Armen Khachikyan, who suggested that there was a lack of sexual satisfaction among mostly middle-aged women in Armenia which led them to be more politically active and to leave comments online, sometimes using swear words.
‘Can we now actually say that in a strong Armenia there will be no unsatisfied woman?’, Karapetyan asked podcast’s co-host Sargizov, following Khachikyan’s remarks.
The offer was met with hesitation from Sargizov, who suggested that a ministry should be established to oversee these issues.
Khachikyan then came up with a hypothetical name, the Ministry of Sex.
Karapetyan went further, suggesting that Armenia’s demographic issues would be impossible to address without sex.
Sona Ghazaryan, an MP from the ruling Civil Contract party, was among the first to share Karapetyan’s controversial statement on her Facebook page, describing it as ‘pure sexism’.
‘Stripping women of their agency, reducing them to the level of male fantasies and crude promises. It is disgusting’, Ghazaryan wrote, adding that ‘returning to the past, in all its forms, will not happen’.
Many social media users, including other Civil Contract members, also strongly criticised Karapetyan.
‘Don’t wrap your pre-election campaign’s sexual lust around the women of Armenia’, Lucy Kocharyan, a feminist influencer, wrote in a Facebook post.
Following the online outcry, Karapetyan responded in a short Instagram video, arguing that his words had been taken out of context. He claimed that under Armenia’s current leadership, ‘our people are being destroyed from within’, due to drug addiction, gambling, and other pressing issues.
He then asked the authorities if they were ‘upset by my wording, or by the fact that I am speaking openly about the problems?’.
‘A healthy society and a healthy Armenia, in every sense, will be our main goal’, Karapetyan concluded.
‘Strong Armenia’
The Triangle podcast was launched in September 2025, with the description of the programme stating that it would cover ‘issues of concern to voters’. It appears to be one of several formats through which the Our Way team, seeking to participate in the upcoming Armenia’s parliamentary elections in June 2026, is engaging with Armenian society.
The team derived its name from comments made by Samvel Karapetyan in support of the Armenian Apostolic Church during the ongoing government–Church confrontation, which escalated in May 2025.
‘If the politicians fail, then we will participate in our own way in all of this’, Samvel Karapetyan said to News.am back in June.
Hours later, he was behind bars — charged with calling for a coup following a dramatic raid on his mansion in Yerevan.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
Less than a month after his arrest, Samvel Karapetyan announced plans to create a ‘fundamentally new political force’.
This led to the establishment of the Our Way initiative, which later registered a political party called Strong Armenia.
Samvel Karapetyan’s dual citizenship would bar him from serving as prime minister under current rules — the Armenian constitution requires a person to have been solely a citizen of Armenia for the preceding four years for that post.
His nephew, Narek Karapetyan, is reportedly set to be the team’s candidate for prime minister.
