Armenian authorities have released a Russian citizen who was detained two days ago at Moscow’s request for alleged desertion, the Armenia Today news website reported Monday.
Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office at no point considered extraditing the detained man to Moscow, the newspaper was told.
The news of the 23-year-old Russian citizen’s April 7 detention in Yerevan was first reported on Sunday, causing concern among the city’s large population of Russians in exile that Yerevan might begin extraditing other Russians being sought by Russian law enforcement.
Using data from the Russian Interior Ministry’s database, researchers from independent Russian media outlet Mediazona said they believed the detained man was Yuri Trostyansky, from the southern Russian town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country following the Kremlin’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and Sept. 21 launch of a “partial” mobilization for the war, with many of them settling in Russia’s immediate neighbors such as Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.