YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Russia has defended the track record of Armenia’s national electric utility owned by jailed Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan but stopped short of explicitly criticizing the company’s controversial seizure by the authorities in Yerevan.
“We are closely monitoring the situation surrounding Electric Networks of Armenia [ENA] and Samvel Karapetyan,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday, November 20, commenting on the authorities’ decision earlier this week to strip ENA’s owner of its operating license.
“Protecting the interests of Russian businesses abroad, as you know, is an absolute priority. Moscow and Yerevan have established intergovernmental channels for discussing such issues,” she told a news conference.
Zakharova argued that Karapetyan’s Tashir Group has invested about $700 million in ENA and kept electricity prices in Armenia virtually unchanged since buying the country’s power distribution network from another Russian company a decade ago.
“Investments of $795 million were planned for 2024-2034,” she said. “We hope that the new managers appointed by the Armenian authorities will be able to present a more effective management model. But the judgment must be based on [ENA’s] concrete record.”
The Armenian government forcibly took over ENA’s management in July following Karapetyan’s arrest and prosecution which came just hours after his strong condemnation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s campaign against the top clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It accused Tashir of mismanaging the country’s power distribution network.
