Suspected titushky organiser Armen “Horlivskyi” Sarkisian visits Berdiansk
The occupied city of Berdiansk was visited by a criminal authority from the time of Ukrainian ex-president Vyktor Yanukovych, the suspected organiser of the titushky [hired thugs used for violence and intimidation against protestors at Maidan in 2014 - ed.] of the Maidan, Armen Sarkisian, nicknamed "Horlivskyi", who has been wanted since 2014. Source: video report of the occupiers Details: In the video, Russian propagandists present Armen Sarkisian as the honorary president of the Berdiansk Boxing Federation, who came to meet local boxers and brought them equipment.
"Boxing is a very courageous sport. Train yourself. This is not my last visit, it's just the beginning," Sarkisian says in the video.
However, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Sarkisian is not just touring Ukrainian cities recently captured by the Russian Federation.
He is appointed as the new "warden" of prisons throughout the territory of the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. The goal is to create a new private military company to prevent the monopoly of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner militia in Russia. "It is expected that within a limited time, the new structure will draft a significant number of 'recruits'.
The inspiration for the project should be the infamous Wagner Group," the Main Directorate of Intelligence noted, adding that the new project should "strengthen the occupation contingent and create internal competition among Russian private military companies". According to the Main Directorate of Intelligence, the sponsor of the new structure is the Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, the owner of the Gazprom-related company Tashir Holding, which also includes the company Electric Networks of Armenia. He is considered to be one of the sponsors of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
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Background: A native of the now-occupied Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast, 44-year-old Armen Sarkisian has been wanted since 2014 on suspicion of organising the Maidan titushky [provocateurs at pro-European and anti-Yanukovych (former Russian-backed President who committed multiple crimes against Ukrainian people and corrupted the country) political rallies that would incite violence in order to get protestors arrested - ed.]. According to the investigation, on 17 February, 2014, acting in the interests of former Interior Minister Vitalii Zakharchenko and his business partners, he ordered Yurii Krysin to find 200-300 people to "protect public order" in the government quarter, which led to the murder of journalist Viacheslav Veremii. As Krysin says, he then received US£20,000 from Armen Sarkisian "for the protection of the government quarter".
Krysin paid UAH 1,000 to his accomplices and kept the rest for himself. The Ukrainian court sentenced Yurii Krysin to five years in prison. Later, he received a second sentence for organising the torture of Maidan activists at the behest of Oleksii Chebotariov, a Yanukovych-era businessman, who is hiding in Russia.
In total, Krysin will be imprisoned until 2026. In the summer of 2019, Yurii Krysin tried to change his testimony and remove the mention of Armen Sarkisian from it, emphasising that he had allegedly slandered him because of a financial conflict. This happened on the eve of the cassation appeal hearing.
During the Yanukovych era, Sarkisian was an influential criminal authority nicknamed "Armen Horlivskyi" [Armen from Horlivka - ed.] who was close to Yurii Ivaniushchenko nicknamed Yura Yenakiievskyi [Yura from Yenakiieve], a former Party of Regions [Yanukovych's party - ed.] member of Ukrainian Parliament. The latter was removed from the wanted list in 2019, citing a prosecutor's decision to close the proceedings. Sarkisian is also considered to be the shadow supervisor of all business in occupied Horlivka.
He has his own cafes and established boxing clubs there. According to the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, since 24 February, he has been looting and taking over businesses in the occupied territories of Ukraine. In 2018, Ukrainian law enforcement officials reported the alleged detention of Sarkisian in France, but later reported that it was the wrong person.
The information about the detention was denied by the suspect himself, noting that he was in Russia.
The media also posted a photo of Armen Sarkisian with Adam Delimkhanov, the right hand of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and a State Duma [Lower Chamber of Russian Parliament - ed.] deputy.
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