Militant Groups Resurface in Armenia’s Struggle Against Radicalization

Executive Summary:

• Last month, Armenia arrested several individuals accused of recruiting others to stage a coup in the country. The group has a history of recruiting Armenian citizens as foreign fighters in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• The Armenian government faces a potential vulnerability from militant groups as progress occurs in the normalization process with Azerbaijan following the 2020 44-day war and recent conflict in Karabakh, fueling discontent among many Armenians.
• Armenia continues to contend with the problems arising from  almost 20,000 unregistered weapons, informal militia units, and radicalized individuals abroad who oppose the government’s position and could take direct action against any or all perceived enemies.

On September 18, Armenian law enforcement announced the arrest of three individuals accused of forming an armed group to overthrow the government (Haykakan Zhamanak, September 18). Four others are currently wanted by the police for recruiting people for three months of training in Russia, with a payment of 220,000 rubles (approximately $2,360) for their participation in said training. Five of the men are Armenian citizens, while two are ethnic Armenians who were formerly residents of now-dissolved Karabakh. The Armenian Investigative Committee claimed that recruits were taken to a Russian military base outside of Rostov-on-Don dubbed “Arbat” for training. They were then allegedly informed that the purpose of this training was to help overthrow the current Armenian government in a coup. Several recruits refused and returned to Armenia, claiming they alerted the police. Media has reported that no such military base exists. There is, however, a Russian militia made up of ethnic Armenians named “Arbat” (“the Armenian Battalion”), which has been associated with Rostov-on-Don and has fought in Ukraine (FIP, September 18). Moreover, the Armenian Church blessed the militia in Moscow, once it was given orders to fight in Donbas against Ukraine. One of those detained was Serob Gasparyan, who is also known for leading another militant group, Black Panther. Gasparyan is a fierce critic of the Pashinyan government (Haykakan Zhamanak, September 18; Hraparak, September 24). The trend of militancy in Armenia and among the Armenian diaspora abroad over the past thirty years could inform the country’s authorities  how to deal with the rise in discontent with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s premiership.

On the same day as the report about this alleged coup, Andranik Kocharyan, an Armenian senior government lawmaker, told a conference in Yerevan that “internal and external enemies continue to seek ways to regain power, including through terrorism.” This was an implied reference to the former regimes of Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin (Azatutyun, September 18). Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova denies that Moscow was behind the alleged coup, as does Serob Gasparyan (Aysor, September 18; Public TV, September 20).

In addition to many members of Arbat having fought in Karabakh, it is said to have been involved in the crackdown on Euromaidan protesters in Kyiv in 2014. In 2022, Putin awarded the Order of Courage to Arbat Commander Hayk Gasparyan, an MMA fighter and a former member of the Wagner Group, for his efforts in the Battle of Soledar in occupied Ukraine. Gasparyan is now under EU sanctions, following his early release from prison after having been recruited to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine (European Union, September 13; FIP, September 18). Gasparyan also recruited others from Russia’s penal colonies to fight in Ukraine with the Wagner Group (Sports Politika, June 25, 2023; Sportskeeda.com, June 26, 2023). An anti-Pashinyan analyst alleges that ethnic Armenians and Armenian citizens have been actively recruited for deployment in Ukraine, but Pashinyan has denied such claims (ZN.ua, July 7, 2023; Mamul, September 24).

The alleged coup attempt in September is not the first such incident under Pashinyan. Aside from claims following Armenia’s defeat in the 44-day war with Azerbaijan in 2020 that the military itself planned to stage a coup, there have been other examples (Al Jazeera, February 25, 2021). In 2021, charges were dropped against individuals allegedly planning to assassinate the prime minister. A year ago, former official Albert Bazeyan and several others were arrested for the same crime (JAM-News, December 30, 2021; Azatutyun, March 21). Police confiscated weapons and ammunition, and Bazeyan was temporarily placed under house arrest. A botched assault on a police station in April 2024 occurred when it became clear Yerevan would return four villages on Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan that had been under the former’s control since the early 1990s to Baku (see EDM, April 8).

Even before Pashinyan’s government, Armenia was hardly a stranger to such incidents. Perhaps the most prominent case was the assassinations in the Armenian National Assembly in 1999 that left eight leading political figures, including then-Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and National Assembly Speaker Karen Demirchyan, dead (ANIARC, October 27, 2021). Although the given reason for the killings was opposition to government corruption, the terrorist attack occurred on the same day Sargsyan had met with then-US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot to discuss the resolution of the Karabakh conflict (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 1999).

The risks of these groups and operations 2020, however, the risks are even greater following it than before the 44-day war in 2020 due to so many weapons still in circulation in Armenia.  At the beginning of 2024, the government reported that around 17,000 assault rifles from the 2020 war had gone missing after the fighting ended (EU Reporter, January 22). In September, Pashinyan blamed the war for the rising gun violence in Armenia (Azatutyun, September 12). A week following this statement, at least one citizen turned in his own stockpile of weapons from the war, leaving them in an anonymously reported location (Haykakan Zhamanak, September 25). The above incidents highlighted how the proliferation of weapons could quite easily be an enabling factor for violent attacks by radicalized individuals (Commonspace, March 28).

The risks are not confined solely to Armenia. They also exist among radicalized individuals and groups in its large diaspora. In late August, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Aram Brunson, a US-born member of the Armenian diaspora, in absentia for attempting to make bombs in his university dormitory (DOJ, August 29). In January 2023, Brunson attracted attention when one such attempt at the University of Chicago resulted in an explosion. Brunson escaped charges after claiming the explosion was a prank. Later investigation revealed that Brunson intended to engage in direct action and terrorism in support of what he considered to be Armenian causes, including attacks against foreign diplomatic buildings in the United States, presumably Azerbaijani and Turkish missions that he had previously called to be targeted by protests by Armenian-American activists (Armenian Weekly, January 18, 2023). The DOJ has also stated that Brunson intended to form a violent extremist revolutionary group in support of Armenia’s claim to Karabakh (DOJ, August 27). 

Brunson is of Armenian and African-American descent and was a member of the nationalist and anti-Pashinyan Armenian Revolutionary Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D). He had briefly lived in Karabakh before eventually moving to Armenia in August last year. Ironically, when boarding the flight to Yerevan from Boston his luggage set off alerts for having been in contact with explosives but was allowed to fly. A later search of his home revealed instructions for making bombs and police dogs detected that such attempts had been made. He faces a sentence of up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for each of multiple charges (Associated Press, August 29). Even so, he currently remains in Yerevan studying at the American University of Armenia (Repat Armenia, June 17).

Ever since the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, security surrounding the Armenian Prime Minister has notably increased, while the risk of violent extremist and terrorist incidents is becoming more apparent (Commonspace, June 20, 2023). In January 2021, one British risk consultancy warned that Azerbaijan’s victory in the 44-day war could lead to the emergence of informal groups launching insurgent-style attacks on the border and elsewhere in the future, especially important in the context of hotly debated transport link between Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhchivan in the future and on the border (Control Risks, January 15, 2021; see EDM, January 25). Two days before the outbreak of the 2020 war, Armenian media also expressed concerns that local militias posed a potential risk to the Pashinyan government, describing them as operating outside the Ministry of Defense’s control (Eurasianet, September 25, 2020). In November, the government confirmed that one such group, VOMA (Art of Survival), has been constructing its own fortifications on the border with Azerbaijan (ArmLur, September 26, 2023; News.am, November 4, 2023).

An international watchdog warned just before the 2020 war that the “Armenian national identity is deeply rooted in historical grievances relating to persecution by external enemies, offering a rich material for militant radicalization” (Freedom House, January 2020). The precedent of ASALA, a US-proscribed Armenian terrorist organization active in the 1970s and 1980s, is testament to that. Although the Armenian government is aware of the dangers posed by such groups and radicalized individuals with access to weapons, it is at least likely in communication with foreign intelligence services abroad. Until now, however, the issue has not been addressed directly using both soft and hard methods. It seems inevitable that sooner or later, it will have to embrace preventative approaches, too, including the possibility that those with military experience could engage in domestic attacks again as well as being in high demand in other conflict zones, such as Ukraine. The removal of Russian Federal Security Service Border Guards from Yerevan’s airport could be one first step in addressing the latter, demonstrating that the Pashinyan government is working toward prioritizing the Armenian people over foreign entities with that in mind (see EDM, August 15).