News reports said the police made the arrests shortly after several dozen people, most of them Russian nationals, gathered in the city’s Liberty Square on the six-month anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine. A police statement released afterwards said the protesters were detained because of defying unspecified police orders.
All of them were released from police custody later in the evening. They included Yury Alexeev, the main organizer of the protest.
“We came [to the square,] unfurled our placards, and all of a sudden police officers turned up, saying they have information that our action has an offensive character and demanding that we stop the demonstration,” Alexeev told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday. “I said that’s not true, that’s nonsense, they have no grounds [to impede the gathering.] They then detained us.”
Alexeev, who relocated to Yerevan this spring along with thousands of other Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin, described the police actions as illegal, arguing that the protest was sanctioned by municipal authorities.
Armenian civic activists also condemned the arrests. “That was completely illegal because the gathering was sanctioned and peaceful,” one of them, Artur Sakunts, said.
The Armenian police did not thwart similar small-scale protests that were staged in Yerevan earlier this year.
Russia has long been Armenia’s main ally, with the two nations maintaining close political, economic and military ties. The Armenian government has refrained from publicly criticizing the Russian invasion.