The 36-year-old Belarusian citizen, Vladimir Balandin, is wanted in his country on embezzlement charges denied by him. The Vanadzor-based Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA) says that he is prosecuted for participating in 2020 antigovernment protests in Minsk sparked by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection which the West regards as fraudulent.
Armenian prosecutors formally agreed to extradite Balandin on May 31, saying that Belarusian authorities have assured them that they will respect the suspect’s rights. Ani Chatinian, an HCA lawyer representing him, tried in vain to have Armenian courts overturn that decision.
“He learned in the Vanadzor prison that he will be extradited soon,” Chatinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday. “For that purpose, he has already been transferred to one of the Yerevan penitentiaries.”
“As a democratic and rule-of-law country, Armenia must not fulfill the illegal demands of dictatorial or undemocratic countries,” she said.
Belarus’s Prosecutor-General Andrei Shved visited Yerevan and met with his Armenian counterpart Anna Vardapetian last week. According to a Belarusian readout of the meeting, they discussed mutual extradition of fugitive suspects and convicts.
Chatinian said that Balandin has applied for asylum in Armenia and that the Armenian Migration Service will block his extradition if it grants the request. Contacted by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the government agency refused to comment, citing an Armenian law on protection of personal data.
According to the HCA, Yerevan has refused to extradite at least two other Belarusians, who were charged at home with draft evasion. The human rights group says that they too participated in the 2020 demonstrations in support of Lukashenko’s main election challenger, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Tsikhanouskaya, who now lives in exile, met with Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian in Brussels in March this year amid heightened tensions between Yerevan and Minsk. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan also made a point of speaking with the Belarusian opposition leader during a European summit in Spain in October 2023.
The tensions rose further in recent months. Yerevan recalled the Armenian ambassador in Minsk for consultations in June after Lukashenko made fresh pro-Azerbaijani statements during a visit to Azerbaijan. Pashinian declared that he and other Armenian officials will not visit Belarus as long as Lukashenko remains in power. The Belarusian strongman, who has been in power since 1994, mocked Armenia and denounced its political leadership for seeking closer ties with the West in an August interview with Russian state television.