The man, Hovannes Sahakian, was interviewed by the Shant TV channel on his arrival at the Zvartnots airport on Sunday morning. He said he and his wife will fly back to Russia hours after casting ballots.
“The situation may get messy,” explained Sahakian. “We are here with the kids and don’t want to get into trouble.”
Sahakian was arrested at Zvartnots later that day as he was about board a return flight to Russia. Armenia’s Investigative Committee charged him with failure to alert relevant authorities about a planned “usurpation of power” in the country.
Sahakian was released from custody but banned from leaving the country. He denies the accusations carrying fines and up to one month in prison. Sahakian’s lawyer, Karine Margarian, insisted on Tuesday that he simply expressed his concerns about possible post-election unrest and did not speak of any coup plots.
“I just don’t know how the investigators are going to corroborate their accusation,” Margarian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “It’s totally baseless.”
Sahakian’s arrest came amid allegations by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s aides and political allies that Armenians living in Russia are paid to travel to the country and vote for the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian. They did not offer any proof of the allegations.
Military police officers are deployed at Yerevan’s Zvartnots international airport, June 4, 2026.
On the eve of the June 7 elections, Pashinian’s entourage openly warned the expats and especially men not to come to Armenia for the polls. A deputy chief of Pashinian’s staff and a news website controlled by the ruling Civil Contract party said that the men would be called up for short military service immediately after entering the country. In a clearly related development, military police officers were deployed at the Yerevan airport over the weekend,
The chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, Lieutenant-General Eduard Asrian, declined to say on Tuesday how many male citizens, if any, were included in the latest 25-day callup of reservists on their arrival from Russia.
“I don’t have such information,” he told reporters.
Asrian, who has been accused by the opposition and some media of ordering military personnel to vote for Pashinian’s party, also said that Armenian expats should not visit their country to take part in its elections.
The Armenian authorities claimed in March this year that a foreign, presumably Russian, intelligence service is pressuring wealthy Armenians doing business abroad to support opposition forces challenging Pashinian in the June 7 polls. The Investigative Committee opened a relevant criminal case at the time. Nobody is known to have been indicted in that probe.
