There has been a tragic incident in the Armenian city of Gyumri, which could well have consequences for international politics. On December 3, the Armenian media spread a message about a "cruel murder" of a 57-year-old woman. The woman was a professional cleaner and was brutally beaten on the way to work. The 57-year-old succumbed to her injuries in the hospital. The attacker is a Russian soldier of the 102nd military base stationed in Armenia, the media reports said. The Russian embassy in Yerevan responded to this report promptly and originally denied the alleged "rumors" about the involvement of a Russian soldier.

But already on December 11, two days after the extraordinary parliamentary elections in Armenia, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office said that a Russian soldier had been arrested as a suspect in the murder case in Gyumri.

The murder of the Armenian civilian now hits high waves in Armenian society as memories of the case of the Russian soldier Valery Permyakov, which occurred almost four years ago, are still alive. In January 2015, Permyakov shot and killed an Armenian family of seven, including a two-year-old child and a six-month-old baby. This was followed by violent protests in Gyumri, in which several thousand demonstrators had participated. During the clashes, more than 30 people were injured, including security forces. The protesters demanded, amongst other things, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Armenia. There was also public dissatisfaction with the fact that the trial was not held in an Armenian court but on the Russian military base and on the legal basis of the Russian Criminal Code. Permyakov was also sent back to Russia for his prison sentence.

There has already been another incident with fatal consequences for Armenian civilians involving Russian soldiers in 1999, when two drunken soldiers of the Russian military base had killed two civilians and injured 14 others. This also happened in Gyumri.

Most recently, in July 2018, the troops of the 102nd Russian military base caused displeasure on the part of Armenia, when the Russian soldiers conducted military exercises in a nearby Armenian village without informing the local civilian population. The villagers were shocked by the shots and the noise - many people panicked and even suspected that a war with Azerbaijan had broken out.

The Russian Embassy in Armenia has repeatedly called on the Armenian public not to "politicize" the current situation. However, the case will probably not remain quite apolitical. The head of the State Security Service of Armenia, Artur Vansetsyan, has already requested that the murderer be sentenced by an Armenian court of law since the crime was committed on the territory of Armenia. Arkak Gazparjan, head of the non-governmental organization “Social Justice”, said in an interview with Lragir.am that the Armenian side must now do everything to ensure that investigations are carried out by Armenian authorities, and that the suspect is not held in the Russian military base, but the Armenian Probation Institute. Armenia must strengthen its involvement in the evaluation of Russian soldiers sent to Armenia for military service. "We need to know who we are dealing with and who will take care of our safety," said Gasparjan.

In light of the continuing tension within the CSTO (Organization of the Collective Security Treaty) over the post of Secretary-General, the latest incident in Gyumri threatens to become a new problem area in Russian-Armenian relations. Relations between Moscow and Yerevan have cooled considerably since the Armenian revolution and, in particular, the arrest of Armenian CSTO general secretary Yuriy Khachaturov in July. So far, unlike many Western leaders, Vladimir Putin, Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan) and Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus) have not congratulated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinjan on his election victory in the extraordinary general election on 9 December (as of 16.12.2018).