On Tuesday, an action was held at the monument; one of its organizers, Isabella Muradyan, said that residents would lay 872 flowers at the monument, symbolizing the 872 days of the siege.
“100 thousand Armenians took part in the battle for Leningrad, and whoever desecrated the monument desecrated the memory of Armenian soldiers,” she said.
Public figure Tigran Chobanyan noted that the man who committed the vandalism also desecrated the memory of Armenian mothers who sheltered orphans from Leningrad.
“He desecrated the memory of Armenian genocide survivors who showed mercy,” Chobanyan said, calling the vandal’s action a betrayal.
Earlier, a native of Yerevan, introducing himself on social networks as Samvel Shirinyan, staged a pogrom near the monument to the children of besieged Leningrad. He knocked over wreaths and trampled a ribbon in the colors of the Russian flag, filming his actions. The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, then ordered the opening of a criminal case. According to local residents, the citizen who desecrated the monument had previously been found to be inciting Russophobia.
The Investigative Committee of Armenia also opened a criminal case.