YEREVAN. – Armenia’s opposition Heritage Party MP Zaruhi Postanjyan is convinced that the events which occurred on January 15 in Gyumri, and following with the brutal killing of six members of a family in the city, do not indicate a Ukraine-like Maidan.

“The demonstrators [in Gyumri] were mostly young people who spend most of the year [working] in the Russian Federation.

“There was no Maidan issue [here]; the protest was legitimate, [and] everyone had realized that the Constitution of Armenia was violated,” Postanjyan said at a press conference on Monday.

In her view, the Armenian public was protesting also because its authorities had manifested an unacceptable inaction, and had not even declared a day of mourning throughout the country.

As reported earlier, six members of the Avetisyan family—including a two-year-old girl—were shot dead, and a six-month-old baby boy was wounded in their house in Gyumri on January 12. Valery Permyakov, a serviceman of the 102nd Russian Military Base in the city, stands accused in this crime. Permyakov was apprehended by the Russian border guards near the Armenian-Turkish border on the same night, and he was arrested on January 14. Valery Permyakov is held in custody at the Russian military base.

The soldier is charged under Russian law, with “the murder of more than two people,” and “desertion with a service weapon.” The Investigative Committee of Armenia also has launched a criminal case on the murders.

The Prosecutor General’s Office had said Permyakov will face justice under Russian law, and this information had provoked a wave of protests in Armenia, especially in Gyumri and capital city Yerevan.