Saturday, Armenian Opposition Leader Again Arrested Armenia -- Former National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsian addresses opposition protesters in Yerevan, November 11, 2020. Artur Vanetsian, a former National Security Service (NSS) director leading an opposition party, was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and overthrow Armenia’s government. The NSS also arrested several other individuals who it said were also involved in the alleged conspiracy. They included Vahram Baghdasarian, a senior member of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). In a statement, the NSS claimed to have found large quantities of weapons in a property belonging to another arrested suspect. It said the weapons were due to be used for murdering Pashinian and seizing power. Vanetsian’s lawyer Lusine Sahakian and Hayrenik (Fatherland) party condemned his arrest as politically motivated. Hayrenik said it is part of the Armenian authorities’ efforts to quell opposition protests against a Russian-mediated ceasefire agreement that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Hayrenik is one of 17 Armenian opposition groups that launched the protests and demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation immediately after the truce went into force on November 10. They accuse Pashinian of capitulating to Azerbaijan and committing high treason. The authorities say that the protests are illegal, citing martial law declared by them following the outbreak of the war on September 27. Vanetsian and a dozen other opposition leaders were detained on November 11 for organizing the protests. Armenian courts freed virtually all of them two days later. Vanetsian, 40, was appointed as head of the NSS immediately the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” that brought Pashinian to power. He quickly became an influential member of Pashinian’s entourage, overseeing high-profile corruption investigations initiated by Armenia’s new leadership. Vanetsian resigned in September 2019 after falling out with the prime minister. He has since repeatedly accused Pashinian of incompetence and misrule, prompting angry responses from the premier and his political allies. First Refugees Return To Karabakh • Gayane Saribekian Armenia - Ethnic Armenian refugees board a bus in Yerevan that will transport them back to Nagorno-Karabakh, . First groups of ethnic Armenian refugees returned to Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday four days after a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war. According to authorities in Stepanakert, the six-week war displaced at least 90,000 Karabakh Armenian civilians making up around 60 percent of the territory’s population. Most of them took refuge in Armenia. The authorities urged the refugees to return home immediately after the entry into force of the truce. The Karabakh president, Ara Harutiunian, assured them that the impending deployment of about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in and around Karabakh will serve as an additional guarantee of their security. Harutiunian also said that his administration will act quickly to restore many homes and public infrastructures damaged during the fierce fighting. On Friday Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with senior Armenian government officials to discuss further aid programs for the Karabakh refugees. “Our priority is to have them receive that aid in Artsakh (Karabakh),” Pashinian said in his opening remarks at the meeting. “That is to say that it must be a program that will contribute to the return of our compatriots to Artsakh.” Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian met, meanwhile, with Harutiunian in Stepanakert. It was announced afterwards that Yerevan’s municipal administration will provide buses that will transport refugees from the Armenian capital to Karabakh free of charge on a daily basis. Nagorno Karabakh -- An unexploded Smerch rocket sticks out of the ground after a shelling attack in Stepanakert, October 9, 2020. About 200 refugees were bused to Stepanakert on Saturday. Among them was Tatevik Hovakimian, a resident of the Karabakh capital whose home was seriously damaged by Azerbaijani shelling. “Never mind, we will somehow get by,” Hovakimian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “The main thing is to return home, to be in our land. We are used to difficulties. We will overcome this one as well.” “Whether or not it’s dangerous, we must go back, we have no other option,” said Inna Sarukhanian, another Stepanakert resident. Arevik Abrahamian, another Karabakh Armenian woman, likewise chose to return to Askeran, a small town 10 kilometers east of Stepanakert, despite being wary of lingering security risks. “It’s dangerous, but where else could we live if we don’t go back?” she said. Bodies Of Armenian, Azeri Soldiers Recovered NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Military vehicles of the Russian peacekeeping forces drive along a road past a burnt tank near Shusha (Shushi), The parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have reportedly begun recovering and exchanging the bodies of their soldiers killed during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war stopped by a Russian-mediated ceasefire. Ara Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, announced the start of the process late on Friday. He said it is being conducted with the help of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (IRC) and Russian peacekeeping forces deployed in and around Karabakh. The Armenian Defense Ministry confirmed the information in a short statement released on Saturday. The mutual handover of soldiers killed in action is envisaged by the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire agreement which was brokered by Russia and went into force on November 10. The deal halted the six-week war that left thousands of people dead and tens of thousands of others. Armenia’s Health Ministry indicated on Saturday that at least 2,300 Armenian and Karabakh Armenian combatants have died during the war. A ministry spokeswoman, Alina Nikoghosian, said the figure does not include dead soldiers whose bodies remain in Azerbaijani-controlled territory. Their total number is not yet known, she said. The Armenian military has so far reported and identified about 1,400 combat casualties within its ranks. Azerbaijan has still not disclosed the number of its soldiers killed during the war. Russian Border Guards Expand Presence In Armenia • Armen Koloyan Armenia -- Russian border guards take part in a ceremony in Yerevan to mark the 70th anniversary of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, May 9, 2015. Russia has announced that its border guard service has set up five new posts along Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Iran due to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. “All necessary measures have been taken and agreed with border services of Armenia, and we have come into contact with Azerbaijani border guards,” Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday during a video conference on the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone. “We have established necessary relations, are exchanging information, and the border guards are serving in a regime of [Armenian] state border protection,” he said. According to Bortnikov, two of the Russian outposts have been established on Armenia’s border Iran while the three others are located along the Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier. One of them is close to the so-called Lachin corridor that will serve as the sole overland link between Armenia and Karabakh as a result of a Russian-brokered truce agreement that stopped the war on November 10. Under that agreement, around 2,000 Russian army soldiers will be deployed in the corridor and the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” in and around Karabakh. Putin discussed the deal’s implementation with Bortnikov as well as Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Minister of Emergency Situations Yevgeny Zinichev. Russian border guards, which are part of the FSB, have until now been deployed only along Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.