Samvel Karapetyan speaks to the press on Tuesday before being detained by the police. Screenshot: 168.am / YouTube

Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who owns the major Russian holding company Tashir Group, has been detained and accused of publicly calling for a seizure of power in Armenia, the Armenian-language edition of Radio Liberty reported on Wednesday, citing his lawyer Armen Feroyvan.

The arrest is reportedly linked to an interview Karapetyan gave to local news outlet News.am on Tuesday, in which he appeared to criticise Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for waging a campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church, the autocephalous national church of Armenia.

According to regional news monitor Eurasianet, Pashinyan has clashed with the Armenian Apostolic Church in the past several months over his Real Armenia project, which seeks to modernise the country and focus on economic development rather than on issues such as the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region that was controlled by its Armenian population for over three decades until Azerbaijan recaptured it in 2023.

At the start of June, in particular, Pashinyan made headlines after taking to social media to accuse the country’s top cleric, Karekin II, of fathering a child in violation of his sworn celibacy.

“A small group, forgetting the history of Armenia, the history of the Armenian Church for thousands of years, has attacked the Armenian Church, the Armenian people… Since I have always been on the side of the… Armenian people, I will directly intervene myself,” Karapetyan told News.am.

Following Karapetyan’s statement, Prime Minister Pashinyan began posting threatening posts against the billionaire on Facebook, calling him a “scoundrel”, and hours later, law enforcement officers were seen conducting an operation at his mansion until late at night.

On Wednesday, Karapetyan, whose fortune Forbes Russia estimates to be worth $3.6 billion, was charged with publicly calling for the seizure of power. He has denied all charges against him.

Pashinyan also announced his intention to nationalise Electric Networks of Armenia, an electric utility company owned by Karapetyan’s Tashir Group that holds a monopoly on electricity distribution in the country.

Karapetyan was born and raised in Armenia, but moved to Russia in the 1990s, making a significant part of his fortune there. He maintains close ties with the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has publicly condemned his arrest.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday that Moscow was “closely monitoring” the situation around “Russian national Samvel Karapetyan”, and that Russia would “provide him with the necessary assistance to ensure that his legal rights are respected”.