The mayor of Gyumri has been charged with a new charge for speaking about the need for an alliance with Russia

Armenian Gyumri Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan has been charged with a new charge for declaring the need for an alliance with Russia to preserve the country's independence. This was announced on October 26 by the politician's lawyer Zaruhi Postanjyan.

Now he is charged with allegedly "publicly calling for the renunciation of the sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia." His defender called it political persecution.

"On Saturday, October 25, it became known that law enforcement agencies decided to initiate a new criminal prosecution against Vardan Ghukasyan for his thoughts on forming an alliance with other countries, "qualifying" them under the article "public call to renounce the sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia," she wrote on Facebook (owned by Meta, recognized as extremist on the territory of the Russian Federation).

Earlier, Ghukasyan told reporters that Armenia, while preserving its sovereignty, independent statehood, legislation, parliament, government, and presidential institution, should form an alliance with Russia to protect itself from the Turkish threat.

As Postanjian pointed out, the accusation has nothing to do with the imputed article. According to her, the incident is a political persecution.

"The mayor of Gyumri, using his right, only expressed an opinion, making a comparison with the creation of mutually acceptable alliances between other states. Ghukasyan stressed several times that this must be done while maintaining an independent statehood. By the same logic, it turns out that recent statements about the Republic of Armenia's accession to the European Union should also indicate a crime. Moreover, Armenia is already a member of a number of unions, including the CSTO, the EAEU, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and other organizations," the lawyer noted.

The lawyer linked the new criminal prosecution to the order given by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to remove Ghukasyan from politics. According to Postanjian, the mayor's defense condemns the new criminal prosecution and will fight with all possible means to restore justice.

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On October 21, the court decided to arrest Ghukasyan for two months as a preventive measure. The defense intends to appeal his arrest. It was noted that Ghukasyan began to be tapped from the day he took office. The lawyer emphasized that Ghukasyan was being treated cruelly: since his arrest, he had not been fed and had been deprived of access to basic hygiene products.

On October 20, Gyumri residents gathered outside the city administration building, where investigative actions were carried out as part of the mayor's detention. Ghukasyan was isolated in the city Hall building, the entrance to which was guarded by armed police. The administration staff tried to get inside to prevent his detention. On October 20, the mayor of Gyumri was charged with accepting a bribe.

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