The founder of a pro-Russian militia group in eastern Ukraine, described by authorities in Kyiv as a “criminal mastermind”, has died following a bombing in central Moscow, according to Russian state media.
Armen Sarkisyan died Monday at a Moscow hospital from injuries sustained in an explosion in an upmarket residential complex in the capital city, TASS quoted the medical services as saying. The Russian Investigative Committee later confirmed Sarkisyan’s death, stating that “despite the assistance provided, one of the victims died in a medical facility.”
Sarkisyan, also known by nickname “Armen Gorlovsky” after Horlivka (Gorlovka in Russian) the eastern Ukrainian town he is from, founded the separatist Arbat Battalion fighting in the region. Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence described him as a “well-known criminal mastermind” who became the “supervisor” of prisons across Russia and occupied territories of Ukraine in November 2022.
The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence said the founding of Arbat in 2022 was an attempt to counterbalance the influence of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Russian private military company sector. Prigozhin was killed the following year when his plane crashed two months after his attempted mutiny against Russia’s leadership.
The battalion fought in several key battles of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) previously said. Arbat was composed “almost entirely” of former Wagner personnel, the US-based conflict monitor said in October 2023.
Sarkisyan was an ally of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-leaning leader who was ousted following deadly protests in Ukraine in 2014 and fled to Russia, according to Ukrainian authorities. Sarkisyan was wanted in Ukraine for his alleged role in the violent response to those demonstrations against Yanukovych.
Sarkisyan was leaving the exclusive Aliye Parusa residential complex in northwest Moscow on Monday morning when the explosion happened, a local resident said in a video published by the independent Russian media outlet SOTA.
Asked about the incident during a press briefing on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “The special services are doing their job. It is difficult work. The information is being clarified, and work is ongoing, so it is impossible for us to comment on anything at this time.”