Gyumri Mayor Faces New Charge of "Calling to Renounce Sovereignty"

The defense team of the arrested mayor of Gyumri has issued a statement informing that Vardan Ghukasyan has been charged with another accusation: for his thoughts on forming a union with other countries, qualifying them as a public call to renounce the sovereignty of the RA (under Article 422, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the RA).

"We find that this accusation has no connection with Article 422 of the Criminal Code of the RA and is simply a manifestation of political persecution for the following simple reason: Vardan Ghukasyan, exercising his fundamental right, merely expressed an opinion, drawing a comparison with the formation of mutually acceptable unions by other states. In his speech, Vardan Ghukasyan emphasized several times that it is necessary to do so by protecting the independent statehood of the RA and to protect it. His speech is available on the internet. By the same logic, it turns out that all recent statements regarding Armenia's accession to the EU should also testify to a crime. Moreover, Armenia is already a member of a number of unions, including the CSTO, the EU, the OSCE, the CoE, and other organizations.

It is obvious that this criminal prosecution, like the previous one, was initiated within the framework of the instruction voiced by the RA Prime Minister in the RA National Assembly on October 1, 2025, to throw the elected mayor of Gyumri out of political life," the statement reads.

The defenders note that they will fight using all possible legal tools to "restore the undermined justice."