Pashinyan Publicly Called One Of His Opponents A “pro-Belarusian Oligarch”

Gagik Tsarukyan has long-standing ties with Lukashenko.

On June 17, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan threatened opposition leaders from the floor of parliament—the head of the “Strong Armenia” party Samvel Karapetyan, the leader of the “Armenia” alliance Robert Kocharyan, and the head of the “Prosperous Armenia” party Gagik Tsarukyan, according to the Armenian service of "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty".

Claiming once again that these politicians had secured more than 500,000 votes by bribing voters, Pashinyan called on those who disagree with his approach to take to the streets.

“Kocharyan, the Kaluga oligarch [Samvel Karapetyan], and the pro-Belarusian oligarch [Gagik Tsarukyan] must be destroyed in their own lair. As long as I am prime minister, I will target and destroy them—I will target and destroy them! I call on those citizens who disagree with this line to carry out a revolution in Armenia and change the government. As I said in 2024, the Karabakh movement will not continue—those who disagree, I urge you to take to the streets. It is impossible to stop this process by other means,” Pashinyan stated.

Pashinyan’s statements came amid the ongoing standoff between the authorities and the opposition, which has intensified following the events surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and disputes over the future development of the Armenian state. Opposition forces regularly criticize the government for its security and foreign policy, while government officials accuse their opponents of corruption and of using old oligarchic schemes to exert influence.

Parliamentary elections were recently held in Armenia, in which Pashinyan’s “Civic Contract” party secured a decisive victory, winning more than 60% of the vote in the new parliament. The political party led by Gagik Tsarukyan—who has been called a “pro-Belarusian oligarch”—fell just short of clearing the electoral threshold and failed to enter parliament.

Gagik Tsarukyan’s ties to Alexander Lukashenko are longstanding and well-known. In May 2026, the businessman said, “Lukashenko is my friend, a person close to my heart.” The Belarusian Embassy in Armenia is located not in the capital, but in the village of Arindzh, near Tsarukyan’s estate. The businessman owns a stake in a Belarusian-Armenian cognac company, and in January 2024, Viktor Lukashenko visited him there.

One of Tsarukyan’s gifts is directly linked to the Belarusian dictator’s son. During Lukashenko’s official visit to Yerevan in 2010, the businessman presented his family with a 400-liter barrel of “Ararat” cognac. It is stored in the cellars of the Yerevan Cognac Factory and, according to reports, is scheduled to be uncorked on the day of Kolya Lukashenko’s wedding, which has not yet taken place.

On June 10, three days after the election, a criminal case was opened against Tsarukyan on suspicion of tax evasion on an especially large scale, and he was barred from leaving the country.

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