Samvel Karapetyan, the imprisoned owner of Armenia’s national electric utility, will fiercely oppose the government’s attempt to seize control of the company, the utility’s chief executive said on Friday, warning of severe consequences for the country’s energy sector and investment climate.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on June 18 that his administration would move swiftly to nationalize Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), just hours after Karapetyan’s arrest in Yerevan. The timing raised eyebrows, coming days after Karapetyan had sharply criticized Pashinyan’s escalating campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church. Pashinyan accused ENA of engineering a “near energy crisis” in an effort to stoke public discontent—an allegation many see as a thinly veiled political attack.
Davit Ghazinyan, ENA’s acting director general, flatly denied the accusations, calling them baseless and politically motivated.
“Samvel Karapetyan will not give in until the end,” Ghazinyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “We will use all legal means to resist the illegal seizure of private property. This kind of pressure on investors is a dangerous precedent and could have very bad consequences for Armenia.”
Opposition leaders echoed that sentiment, characterizing the move as retaliation against a dissenter who dared to challenge Pashinyan. They argue the prime minister is using state power to silence critics, regardless of the economic fallout.
Karapetyan’s Moscow-based Tashir Group, which owns ENA, says it has invested over $700 million into modernizing Armenia’s outdated power distribution infrastructure since acquiring the utility from a Russian energy conglomerate in 2015. The company claims to have dramatically reduced energy losses and stabilized the grid—accomplishments now overshadowed by the government’s aggressive push for control.
Critics warn that nationalizing ENA under these circumstances sends a dangerous message to current and future investors: political loyalty is now a precondition for doing business in Armenia. As Pashinyan tightens his grip on key institutions, concerns are mounting that Armenia’s democratic and market-oriented image is being replaced by authoritarian tactics and economic centralization.
