Law enforcement agencies prevent vile   plan to destabilize situation in Armenia - premier 

ArmInfo. Law enforcement agencies have prevented a large and vile plan to destabilize the situation in the Republic of Armenia and seize  power.  Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote about this on his  Facebook page, disseminating a message from the Investigative  Committee of Armenia. 

The latter, in particular, notes that the leader of the movement Bagrat Galstanyan and his supporters are suspected  of intending to commit terrorist acts and seize power in an  unconstitutional manner. The ARF Dashnaktsutyun, in turn, reported  that searches are currently being conducted in the apartments of Igor  Sargsyan, a member of the ARF Supreme Body, Vardan Avakyan, a member  of the ARF Committee in Abovyan, Artashes Hunanyan, a member of the  ARF Committee in Hrazdan, and Varazdat Amirakyan, a member of the ARF  Committee in Noyemberyan.

Thus, according to the Investigative Committee's press release, V.G.  (Bagrat Galstanyan - ed.), having failed to achieve his goal of  seizing power in the Republic of Armenia in the manner permitted by  the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia within several months of  the implementation of the movement initiated and led by him , in November 2024, he began to achieve it in a manner not  permitted by the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, and in  order to achieve this goal, with the prior consent of a number of  movement participants, he acquired the necessary means and tools to  commit terrorist acts and seize power as part of a group, and also  deliberately created other conditions, thereby preparing for the  usurpation of power.

Having failed to achieve the goal set before the movement in this way  within several months of the movement's implementation and having  stopped public events of a political nature, V.G., realizing that  according to Article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of  Armenia, the power in the Republic of Armenia belongs to the people,  and the people exercise their power through free elections,  referendums, as well as through state and local self-government  bodies and officials provided for by the Constitution, and the  usurpation of power by any organization or individual is a crime, and  also knowing that the opportunity to express, disseminate one's own  approaches and gain supporters in this way can be realized by the  Constitution of the Republic of Armenia through the guaranteed  realization of the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of  assembly and that the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia  provides for general, equal and free elections as a legal way of  coming to power, during meetings with the participants and supporters  of the movement called categorically excluded the  method of preparing for the elections, participating in them and  coming to power in this way and announced a change in the methodology  of holding elections. activities of the movement, namely, to exclude  methods of persuasion and propaganda, to carry out the activities of  the movement and its ultimate goal not through the logic of meetings,  but through mutually agreed upon violent actions by small strike  groups at a convenient moment.

As a result of regular discussions, V.G., M.Sh., Kh.Sh., T.P., L.M.,  Kh.Kh., I.S., A.R., A.G., A.I., A.A., M.M., D.G. and other members of  the criminal group decided to form 200-250 strike groups of up to 25  people with military training, mainly former military personnel and  police officers, setting each of them a clear task that must be  completed at any cost, without knowing about the task being carried  out by other groups and the progress of its implementation, and  without joining other groups, regardless of their actions.  The  criminal group planned that after forming the strike groups and  acquiring the necessary means to carry out the intended tasks, after  V.G. will call upon them to gather in front of the RA Government at a  certain time to express their dissatisfaction on the relevant issue,  the strike teams should be deployed in pre- determined locations and  should under no circumstances join even a small rally, which was  actually held to distract the attention of the authorities. The  members of the criminal group had clearly planned that the final goal  set before the movement should be achieved not by a rally of its  participants, but by carrying out strike actions pre-determined for  them by the strike teams in a short period of time: carrying out  attacks within 24-36 hours and creating an uncontrollable situation  in the populated areas of the Republic of Armenia. Moreover, the  leaders of the criminal group used psychological and propaganda  tricks and to achieve their criminal goals, leaving  the execution of the main illegal actions to the .

In order to achieve their criminal goal of seizing power in the  Republic of Armenia, V.G. and other members of the criminal group  planned to commit an act of terrorism, namely, to take the lives of  peaceful citizens, cause serious or moderate bodily harm to them,  cause major property damage and cause other serious consequences, in  particular, to build tunnels in Yerevan and on other roads of the  republic, stage dozens of car accidents on large and busy streets and  avenues providing the main movement of vehicles, and in reality  organize their deliberate collisions, as well as paralyze the traffic  of the entire republic by damaging or setting fire to vehicles, carry  out explosions with the simultaneous use of thousands of incendiary  devices, fire them at the walls of buildings and structures, damage  power cables of electrical and Internet communications, as well as  other equipment providing their power supply, using the above-  mentioned incendiary devices. and destruction to carry out mass power  outages and internet shutdowns, mass disruptions of traffic lights at  intersections, in the same way to disable trolleybus power lines, as  well as to destroy public service facilities by arson, thereby  pursuing the goal of terrorizing the population and creating an  uncontrollable situation among the population. The members of the  criminal group planned to take parallel measures to deprive the  responsible state bodies of the opportunity to eliminate the  situation, including preventing or even eliminating the movement of  the relevant police forces, blocking in various ways exits to the  locations of the internal police troops, disrupting the movement of  police vehicles, paralyzing through hacker attacks the websites of  the RA government and other state agencies, electronic control  systems, as a result pursuing the goal of disorganizing the  activities of state authorities and forcing persons who assumed power  in the RA in the manner prescribed by the Constitution to abandon it.

In preparation for committing the above-mentioned criminal acts, the  members of the criminal group have already recruited more than 1,000  people through the movement's participants and supporters since  January 2025, obtained a map of Yerevan to determine the main streets  and plan the actions, received data on the location of traffic  lights, power strips and Internet cables to turn them off, ordered  and purchased thousands of incendiary devices designed for explosions  and shootings, as well as sharp metal parts suitable for damaging  vehicle tires and paralyzing traffic - , and continued their  activities aimed at recruiting people for strike groups, while  assuring the latter in their speeches at meetings with the leaders of  the groups that the planned actions are the only way to achieve  success and instructing the latter, in turn, to take measures to  strengthen the vigilance, readiness and will of the group members to  complete the assigned task at any cost. V.G. and other members of the  criminal group were unable to begin their above- mentioned actions,  which constitute the objective side of the crimes included in the  intent - terrorism and usurpation of power by seizure of power -  appropriation of powers of the Government of the Republic of Armenia  and the National Assembly by means not provided for by the  Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, were identified by the  employees of the National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia  during their preparation.

Within the framework of the criminal proceedings initiated on the  fact of the incident, urgent investigative and other procedural  actions are being carried out.

The Investigative Committee reports that within the framework of the  initiated criminal proceedings, using the permissible means of the  criminal procedure law, it will take the necessary measures for the  criminal- legal assessment of the actions of all participants of the  criminal group and will apply to them equivalent measures of  procedural coercion, and calls on not to succumb to the provocations  of the criminal group and to demonstrate exclusively law-abiding  behavior>, - the report of the investigative body says.