From small-time Ukrainian crime boss to potential Prigozhin rival Who was Armen Sarkisyan, the Russian paramilitary head killed in a Moscow blast?
On the morning of February 3, an explosion rocked a high-end apartment complex in Moscow, killing at least one person and injuring multiple others. The confirmed victim was Armen Sarkisyan, a businessman and criminal figure from the occupied city of Horlivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russian state investigators reported that his murder was likely linked to a power struggle over his business interests, though they haven’t ruled out Ukraine’s involvement. During Kyiv’s Euromaidan protests in 2013–2014, Sarkisyan recruited mercenaries to disperse opposition supporters. After 2014, he moved between the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia, and in 2022, he backed Moscow’s full-scale invasion, founding the Arbat volunteer battalion. The unit was soon integrated into the Russian army and, according to Ukrainian intelligence, was even considered by Russian authorities as a viable alternative to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group — thanks to Sarkisyan’s loyalty. Meduza tells the story of Armen Sarkisyan’s rise from a provincial gang member to an influential field commander in the war against Ukraine.
Armen Sarkisyan was born in 1978 in Armenia, but he moved with his family to Horlivka, an industrial city in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, when he was still a child. The city was well known in the USSR and early post-Soviet Ukraine for its Stirol chemical plant and companies that produced drilling equipment for mines. “I consider Donbas my second home,” Sarkisyan once said.
Sarkisyan became involved in Horlivka’s criminal underworld in the 1990s, doing business in the city’s shadow economy. By the early 2000s, he’d become a local crime boss with significant connections. According to Ukrainian media, he led a gang that worked for Oleksandr Baturyn (also known as “Batura”), a member of the “Yenakiieve group” and a “trusted associate” of kingpin Yurii Ivaniushchenko. Later, Sarkisyan himself became a close associate of Ivaniushchenko, who appointed him as a local “enforcer.” This role earned him the nickname Armen Horlivskyi.
The Yenakiieve group was considered one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Horlivka. It controlled the liquor trade and taxi services, wielded influence in the city’s coal and steel industries, and was rumored to have established a drug trafficking network across the Russian-Ukrainian border in cooperation with Russian criminal groups. Sarkisyan’s work, according to the Donetsk-based outlet Vchasno, “mainly involved criminal activities and intimidation of people, including businessmen.”
Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today.
After former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in 2010, Sarkisyan used his ties to Yenakiieve group leader Yurii Ivaniushchenko — a friend of the new president — to establish connections with the heads of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. Ivaniushchenko also entrusted him with overseeing the coal business in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. One such enterprise, ArtyomUgol in Donetsk, remained state-owned on paper but was effectively controlled by Ivaniushchenko and Sarkisyan.
In 2013, the outlet Horlivka.ua described Sarkisyan as the city’s “éminence grise”; he lived a lavish lifestyle, had extensive connections among the local elite, and reportedly took an interest in philanthropy — though the outlet didn’t specify what kind.
Horlivka.ua editor-in-chief Oleksandr Bilinskyi later characterized those years as a period of unchecked power for organized crime groups in Donbas. “Ivaniushchenko’s people controlled the city, and it didn’t matter who the mayor, prosecutor, or police chief was. [Sarkisyan] would drop by the police chief’s office and give orders,” the journalist recalled.
Officially, however, Sarkisyan held the position of head of the local Boxing Federation and served as an aide to none other than Ivaniushchenko himself, who was elected to parliament in 2012 on the Party of Regions list. A year earlier, Ivaniushchenko had ranked second in Korrespondent Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential Ukrainians.
Euromaidan
During Ukraine’s 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests, the authorities entrusted Sarkisyan with recruiting pro-government thugs known as “titushky” to violently suppress demonstrations in Kyiv. According to investigators, it was men recruited by Sarkisyan who murdered Vesti newspaper journalist Vyacheslav Veremiy in the capital.
After the Ukrainian opposition came to power in the spring of 2014, Sarkisyan’s fighters took part in suppressing Euromaidan supporters in Donbas. In May of that year, the new Ukrainian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest, and from then on, he moved between Russia and occupied parts of Donbas.
In the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Sarkisyan quickly formed close ties with Horlivka’s pro-Russian mayor Ivan Prikhodko and maintained his grip on the city’s shadow economy. He also stayed in contact with Ivaniushchenko, who had fled Ukraine and was also wanted by authorities (according to Ukrainska Pravda, he was living in Monaco). Sarkisyan reportedly helped him with property redistribution in Odesa and managed his assets on DNR-controlled territory. Ivaniushchenko himself had failed to establish a working relationship with the DNR’s leadership and was consequently placed under their “sanctions.”
Officially, Sarkisyan continued to serve as head of the DNR Boxing Federation, and in 2020, he was even declared a “distinguished citizen” of Horlivka. Meanwhile, he expanded his operations into Russian business circles. According to RBC, he co-owned the Moscow-based companies Retail Group (which leased and managed real estate) and Tklab (a wholesale distributor of tobacco products). He also held a 99.64 percent stake in the investment firm AB Group.
From crime boss to field commander
When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sarkisyan openly supported Russia’s aggression. In September 2022, he formed the Arbat (short for “Armenian Battalion”), a volunteer unit that began operating in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as part of the Russian army.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, in November of that year, the Russian authorities tasked Sarkisyan with recruiting prisoners from Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories for the war — allegedly to create a Kremlin-loyal rival to Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was expanding his influence.
Sarkisyan’s work was highly praised in Moscow: in July 2023, the Arbat battalion was officially incorporated into the structures of the Russian Ministry of Defense, and its fighters were blessed by an Armenian Church bishop in Moscow. Around the same time, a former convict named Ayk Gasparyan became the new commander of Arbat. He had been sentenced to eight years for armed robbery but was released early to join Wagner Group. In December 2022, Vladimir Putin awarded him a state medal for courage.
In the fall of 2024, the battalion was redeployed to Russia’s Kursk region, which was already partially occupied by Ukrainian forces. Meanwhile, Armenia’s Investigative Committee claimed that Arbat’s military base in Rostov-on-Don was being used to train fighters for a coup against Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who had begun distancing himself from Moscow.
Sarkisyan himself rarely appeared in the combat zone — he spent most of his time in Moscow, where his business interests were. In February 2024, his name made headlines after his bodyguards got into a shootout with Rasul Ochayev, an MMA fighter from Chechnya. The confrontation started when Ochayev’s car collided with that of Sarkisyan’s daughter, Emilia. Around the same time, rumors began circulating about a conflict between Sarkisyan and Chechen elites — despite the fact that in May 2022, he had been photographed with Adam Delimkhanov, and in October 2024, he had wished Ramzan Kadyrov’s brother, Visita, a happy birthday. However, even if there were tensions, the outcome favored the Donbas businessman: Rasul Ochayev was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for intentionally causing grievous bodily harm.
A year after the shootout, on the morning of February 3, an explosion occurred in the entrance of Moscow’s high-end Scarlet Sails residential complex, where Armen Sarkisyan had been renting an apartment. The blast hit as he was stepping out of an elevator with two companions, both of whom had past ties to Ukraine — Sergey Shkryabatovsky, a former bodyguard of Yanukovych, and Oleg Kasperovich, a former special forces officer from Crimea who sided with Russia in 2014 and later worked as Sarkisyan’s bodyguard. Shkryabatovsky, Kasperovich, and Darya Karseladze — another resident of the building who happened to be in the entryway — were seriously injured. Sarkisyan died in the ICU.
The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a case under charges of murder and attempted murder of two or more people (Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to the Russian authorities, the explosion may have been carried out by a suicide bomber, possibly an Armenian national. The leading theory is that the attack was part of a power struggle over Sarkisyan’s business interests, though investigators said they haven’t ruled out Ukraine’s involvement. In December 2024, Ukraine’s Security Service had charged Sarkisyan with two criminal offenses: “voluntary participation in illegal armed formations” and “aiding the aggressor state.”
Sign up for Meduza’s daily newsletter
A digest of Russia’s investigative reports and news analysis. If it matters, we summarize it.
Story by Konstantin Skorkin