Armenia arrests three people suspected of plotting a coup

September 18 () –

Armenian authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of three people suspected of plotting a coup and said that a total of seven people were involved in the plan, which included recruiting people to travel to Russia to receive military training in order to join the Armed Forces.

The Investigative Committee of Armenia has stressed in a statement that the suspects are Armenian citizens and two former residents of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was reintegrated by Azerbaijan into its territory after nearly three decades under separatist control following a military offensive launched in 2023.

He said they were all suspected of “making preparations to seize power” through the “use of violence and the threat of violence,” adding that the cell had recruited Armenians to undergo military training in Russia for three months, including combat skills.

In this regard, he said that the recruits were subjected to a lie detector test to determine whether they had ties to the Armenian authorities and were taken to a military base in Rostov-on-Don, where they were told that the real objective was to return to Armenia to carry out a coup d’état.

The agency said that “some recruits opposed this and refused to participate in an armed coup” and returned to Armenia, when they alerted the authorities, who proceeded to launch an investigation. “There are active measures to identify the rest of the members of the criminal group,” it concluded.