Armenian authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of 14 individuals accused of plotting to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. According to Armenia’s Investigative Committee, the group had "acquired the means and tools necessary to commit a terrorist attack and seize power." Pashinyan also alleged that the conspiracy involved members of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The alleged ringleader is Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, leader of the Sacred Struggle opposition movement. Galstanyan, who led mass protests against the government last year, is accused of orchestrating a campaign of violence, including planned bombings, arson attacks, and road blockades intended to destabilize the state.
Wednesday’s arrests are widely seen as part of an ongoing crackdown on opposition figures. On June 18th, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan was also arrested for allegedly making public calls to overthrow the government after criticizing Pashinyan’s actions against the church. His company, Electricity Networks of Armenia, is currently facing potential nationalization.
Pashinyan, who rose to power in 2018 following a color revolution, has pushed Armenia on a pro-Western course, distancing the country from its longstanding cultural and geopolitical ties with Russia. His administration has recently come under fire for launching a public campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church, a historically powerful institution in Armenian society.
During a cabinet session in early June 2025, Pashinyan criticized the condition of Armenian churches, describing them as “storage rooms” filled with “piles of garbage, bags of cement, shoes, old clothes, old beds, leftover materials, and rusty rebar.”
Additionally, Pashinyan has defended the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh—previously a de facto independent Armenian-majority enclave in Azerbaijan—as a net positive for Armenia, a stance that has further alienated opposition figures and large segments of the population.
Observers also note the growing footprint of American and Western influence in Armenia. The U.S. Embassy in the capital, Yerevan, is the second-largest in the world by land area, surpassed only by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.