Units of Armenia's National Security Service, yesterday and today arrested seven individuals in the country’s Syunik Province on suspicion of illegal arms possession.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee reports an investigation has been launched and will issue a statement later.

Those arrested include pro-Russian blogger Mika Badalyan and Sputnik Armenia journalist Ashot Gevorkyan.

Sputnik Armenia writes that Ashot Gevorgyan went to Syunik to prepare a radio broadcast about life in Armenia’s border regions.

Sputnik International writes that Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, on her Telegram channel, claims the detention of Badalyan in Goris could be another “provocation by the West” to spoil relations between Moscow and Yerevan.

Zakharova links the arrests to a Russia-Armenia media forum underway in Yerevan.

(The Sputnik global news agency, headquartered in Moscow, was established by the Russian-government owned Rossiya Segodnya news agency in 2014.  Sputnik operates news websites featuring reporting and commentary in thirty-one languages.)