A Russian soldier stationed at the same military base in Armenia where another soldier confessed to killing an entire local family earlier this year has been found murdered, Armenia's Investigative Committee said Monday.
The victim was Ivan Novikov, a soldier serving at the Russian military base in the city of Gyumri in northwest Armenia, the committee's press secretary Sona Truzyan said. A contract soldier also stationed at the base has been detained in connection with the murder, Russian media quoted the Russian military as saying.
“Investigators are working with him. He is giving his testimony,” deputy chief of the base Alexei Polyukhovich said.
According to local media, Novikov was a conscript who had been at Russia's base in the former Soviet republic for less than three months. Stab wounds were found on his body, which was discovered near the Mother Armenia World War II memorial in Gyumri.
Another Russian soldier who formerly served at the base is currently awaiting trial after confessing to the murders in January of seven members of a local Armenian family, including two small children. The brutal murder of the family, which had no clear motive, prompted large protests in Gyumri by the local population.
Novikov is the second Russian serviceman to die in Gyumri since the beginning of the year. Artur Afyan, who served in the border control department of the Federal Security Service, was found hanged in March after disappearing a month earlier.
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