MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian entrepreneur recently detained in Armenia, has long been listed on the Ukrainian extremist website Mirotvorets (Peacemaker), according to data published on the portal.
The website’s administrators report that the philanthropist of Armenian origin who founded and presides over the "Tashir" group of companies was added to the database in April 2023 for allegedly engaging in "commercial activities in economic sectors, providing a significant source of income for the Russian government."
Karapetyan’s home was raided on June 18, shortly after he told reporters that "a small group <…> attacked the Armenian Church and the Armenian people." He declared that "if the politicians fail, we will respond to the campaign against the Church in our own way." Later, the businessman was arrested.
Tensions between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the clergy have intensified in recent years. On May 30, Pashinyan and his wife, Anna Hakobyan, posted a series of social media messages containing critical remarks about representatives of the Armenian Church. Relations soured further after the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the Church’s supreme authority, demanded Pashinyan’s resignation in 2020 and criticized his handling of the Karabakh issue.
Founded in 2014, Mirotvorets seeks to identify and publish personal data of individuals it considers a threat to Ukraine’s national security. In recent years, journalists, artists and politicians who visited Crimea, Donbass or were otherwise deemed problematic by Mirotvorets’s administrators have found themselves blacklisted by the portal.