By Ellen Hokhikyan, WGSA Associate Expert
Armenia’s Pashinyan government is taking unprecedented steps to purge the country of entrenched Russian agents of influence, whether they wear business suits, clerical robes, or the cloak of national tradition, making clear that the nation’s path to genuine independence means confronting Moscow’s deeply entrenched influence in every corner of its state and society. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his team, recognizing that a grand bargain between Washington and Moscow would not materialize, have launched decisive measures to dismantle this network, from oligarchs and businessmen tied to Gazprom, to powerful clerics who have long meddled in politics purportedly at Moscow’s behest. It is a risky, historic effort that shows Armenia’s resolve to step out of Russia’s shadow once and for all, despite all the internal sabotage, disinformation, and geopolitical double standards it must face along the way.
The Case of Samvel Karapetyan: Business Tied to Gazprom
There is little mystery in Karapetyan’s case. His business empire, built since the 1990s, has depended heavily on ties with Russian authorities through Gazprom. A recent case revealed how Gazprom, attempting to avoid sanctions and pursue questionable schemes, transferred one of the world’s most expensive villas in France to Karapetyan, who, reportedly, mortgaged it back to Gazprom. This lucrative arrangement with Gazprom brings billions to Tashir annually, typical of figures with deep ties to Russia operating from Yerevan.
This is not the Kremlin’s first attempt to install its proxies in Armenia’s leadership. In 2018, Moscow placed its hopes on another Gazprom-linked figure, Karen Karapetyan, a former Armenian prime minister who was Moscow’s candidate during the revolution. That attempt failed. Moscow then turned to Ruben Vardanyan, another prominent Russian businessman, to overthrow Pashinyan, but that plan, too, collapsed. Now, it’s the turn of Tashir’s owner to face the consequences of these ties.
It’s worth noting that until now, Samvel Karapetyan had never directly meddled in Armenian politics. Apart from occasionally issuing broad statements on behalf of Tashir Group whenever the Armenian government made decisions Moscow disapproved of, he mostly stayed in the economic sphere. But this is precisely how Russia has long operated in its neighborhood: by cultivating wealthy businessmen on its own soil, then using their dependence on Kremlin goodwill as leverage when needed. Karapetyan’s business interests in Armenia, at least on paper, gave him little incentive to stir political unrest; as one of the country’s largest investors, he benefited from favorable terms and state cooperation. Yet after the arrest of Archbishop Galstanyan for plotting an armed coup, Karapetyan appeared in Yerevan and publicly hinted that they would use “their own methods” to confront the state authorities, a clear signal of Moscow’s readiness to lean on influential allies to destabilize Armenia from within.
Walking a Tightrope with the Kremlin
For years, Pashinyan had to tread carefully, balancing Armenia’s precarious position to avoid triggering an outright clash with Moscow. Even as Armenia made statements about “freezing” its participation in Russia-led alliances like the CSTO, it remained a member. This balancing act is shifting: Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan recently declared that if CSTO members, including Russia, fail to support Armenia’s territorial integrity and condemn Azerbaijani aggression, Armenia will officially exit the CSTO.
Having now resolved its long-standing conflict with Azerbaijan, a dispute that Moscow long used as leverage, Armenia is gradually loosening Russia’s grip. While Washington once tried to maintain engagement with Moscow, leading some neighbors like Georgia and Armenia to seek Moscow’s favor, it’s now evident there will be no such détente. Seeing that Moscow gained no concessions from the West and failed even to fully back its ally Iran, Pashinyan decided not to wait for yet another Kremlin-backed power grab in Yerevan.
Challenging the Kremlin’s Clerical Influence
It’s not only oligarchs and politicians who are targets of this purge. Pashinyan has also moved against some members of the Armenia’s National Church hierarchy, a bold move, given its sensitive role in Armenian society.
The Church, which was believed to be penetrated by the Soviet KGB, remains a channel of Kremlin influence in many post-Soviet states, including Armenia and Georgia. Priests often campaign for Russia-backed candidates, undermining democracy and steering congregations back into Moscow’s orbit.
Unlike Georgia’s government, which has never dared to confront these entrenched interests within the Church, Pashinyan has done so, aiming to free Armenia from this insidious influence. Many Armenians see the risk he is taking as he stands up to traditions and challenges the authority of the Church, an institution still partly captured by Russian loyalists, just as it was in Ukraine before its Orthodox Church broke away from Moscow. However, it was not Pashinyan who threw down the gauntlet. He merely was forced to lift it.
To Caesar what is Caesar’s, to God what is God’s
After the victory of the Velvet Revolution in 2018, there was a strong public demand to remove Catholicos Garegin II, who was widely seen as a loyal servant of the old regime, neither loved nor respected by the nation. Rumors about him living like a secular oligarch with a secret family were long-standing. Ironically, some of the same media outlets that now fiercely oppose Pashinyan and accuse him of waging war against the National Church were the ones that once published exposés revealing Garegin’s alleged personal affairs, naming names and urging him to step down for failing to uphold celibacy.
Back in 2018, when Pashinyan was at the peak of his popularity and enjoyed the overwhelming trust of the Armenian people, he announced that he did not see it as appropriate to interfere in Church affairs. But the Catholicos did not share this view; instead, he repeatedly involved himself in Armenia’s political life. Just a month after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war was lost, Garegin publicly called on Pashinyan to resign. He reiterated this demand even after Pashinyan stepped down and called snap elections – elections in which Pashinyan’s party regained an absolute majority despite the war’s outcome and the difficult circumstances facing Armenia.
It is hard not to infer that Garegin may have been advancing Moscow’s interests all along. After all, he has close ties with Russian Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, whom he frequently meets to discuss the region’s political landscape, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Notably, during the 2020 war, Garegin received a medal from President Putin, hand-delivered by Russian Ambassador Sergey Kopirkin. One must ask: for what services would a Russian president decorate the all-Armenian Catholicos? Concerns about Garegin’s leadership have long focused on his perceived lack of engagement with the real needs of the Armenian people, especially in the country’s most fateful moments. While he has often been called out for being detached from the daily struggles of his flock, he has not hesitated to meddle in politics, which is not his domain at all, given that Armenia is a secular country with a clear separation of Church and State.
Exposing Plots and Coup Attempts
In 2024, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan emerged as the de facto leader of the “Sacred Struggle” movement. What began as a supposed protest to stop Armenia from “ceding” villages in the Tavush region to Azerbaijan evolved into a full-blown attempt to topple the government. In reality, the villages were never ceded; instead, a long-overdue demarcation process took place. Despite visible support from all pro-Russian political forces and even Russian parliamentarians and experts, the plot failed.
Yet pro-Russian forces remain active. Just one year before Armenia’s 2026 elections, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan was accused of plotting a violent coup, including bombings, arson, attacks on power and internet infrastructure, and assassinations, supported by a coordinated disinformation campaign. Another outspoken cleric, Archbishop Mikayel Ajapahyan, who had repeatedly urged the opposition to overthrow Pashinyan and his government by force during several public appearances, reiterated these calls immediately after Galstanyan’s arrest and was himself detained soon after on charges of publicly inciting the violent overthrow of Armenia’s constitutional order. Meanwhile, Catholicos Garegin II, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, has never condemned these actions. On the contrary, since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, he has consistently demanded Pashinyan’s resignation and has maintained close ties with Armenia’s previous corrupt leaders.
It is worth noting that although the pro-Russian opposition, certain church representatives, and some Armenian and Russian media outlets continue to portray these arrests as an attack on the Church and “national values,” some current and former clergy have spoken out against this narrative—calling out Garegin’s corruption and declaring him unfit to lead the National Church.
Moreover, some EU countries that were quick to condemn the recent wave of arrests of opposition figures in Georgia as politically motivated have remained conspicuously silent about the arrests of top church members in Armenia accused of plotting or calling for an armed coup. In contrast, French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on June 30 that he had spoken with Prime Minister Pashinyan to express France’s solidarity in the face of attempts to destabilize Armenian democracy and reiterated France’s support for Pashinyan’s “courageous efforts to achieve peace with Azerbaijan and normalize relations with Turkey.
A Risky but Necessary Path
Ultimately, the pro-Russian opposition and their clerical allies pose little real threat to Pashinyan’s political survival in the immediate sense. The true danger is that they threaten to drag Armenia back into the Moscow’s grip, undoing years of painful, costly steps toward sovereignty. Pashinyan knows Moscow still holds powerful levers of sabotage, from economic pressure to covert influence within the state and Church. Yet he also understands a basic truth: without finally breaking free from Russian influence, even at the price of a hard-won settlement with Azerbaijan and an unpredictable dialogue with Turkey, Armenia cannot become a fully sovereign state.
Some abroad may selectively condemn or ignore these efforts, blinded by old assumptions or convenient double standards. But the reality is clear to most Armenians: these arrests are not a war on faith or tradition, but a fight to reclaim the Church and other institutions from decades of Moscow’s interference. This is what makes Pashinyan’s cautious but decisive course so remarkable and so fragile at the same time.
If Armenia succeeds, it will not be because its path was easy, but because its people recognized that real independence demands confronting every root of foreign subjugation, however sacred it may once have seemed. That struggle deserves understanding and support, not cynicism or indifference. Only then can Armenia finally be what its revolution promised: a state that belongs to its people alone.