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Forces that are interested in sowing hatred and fear between Armenia and Russia are behind the provocation involving the detention of Sputnik Armenia columnist Ashot Gevorgyan, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday, Sputnik reported.

On Thursday, the head of Russian cooperation agency Rossotrudnichestvo, Yevgeny Primakov, said that pro-Russian blogger Mikayel Badalyan had gone missing in the Armenian city of Goris. Later, Sputnik Armenia reported that the blogger was detained together with the agency's columnist Ashot Gevorgyan by the Armenian Investigative Committee.

Later, the Armenian Investigative Committee said that Badalyan and Gevorgyan were detained in the south of Armenia as part of a case of illegal firearms trafficking.

"It is obvious that behind this provocation are the very forces that are not interested in bringing our countries and their peoples closer together, they are interested in the opposite — in alienating people, in sowing hatred, fear, mistrust," Zakharov said to the participants of the Russian-Armenian media forum that has kicked off in Yerevan.