According to an analysis by the think tank NewsGuard, Russia’s propaganda network has disseminated eighteen false claims targeting the Armenian government since April. Based on monitoring data, these claims appeared in 13,883 social media posts and articles, garnering 45 million views. The disinformation was spread across eleven social media platforms in eight languages, using AI-generated fake news sites and coordinated social media accounts.
Disinformation involving corruption, sex scandals, and other alleged misconduct began circulating as early as fourteen months before Armenia’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for June 2026. This marks an unusually early start for a Kremlin information campaign, compared to previous interventions in other countries’ elections. Following its failures in Moldova, Moscow appears to have realized that influencing elections requires a much earlier start.
“Armenia is more important to Russia than Germany, Romania, or even Moldova,” said Nerses Kopalyan, a political science professor of Armenian descent at the University of Nevada. “From their point of view, a politically deadlocked, incapacitated, and stressed Armenia is exactly the kind of state they want to see.”
Armenia, which for years was Russia’s closest ally, shifted toward the European Union after Russia failed to protect it from an Azerbaijani attack. In February 2024, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan suspended Armenia’s participation in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). In March 2025, the Armenian parliament adopted a resolution expressing the country’s desire to join the European Union — a politically symbolic change of direction.
In response, the Kremlin launched a multi-layered disinformation campaign aimed at undermining public trust in Pashinyan’s government ahead of the 2026 elections.
Disinformation targets the pain points of the Armenian people
The influence campaign appears to be carried out by the Russian propaganda group Storm-1516 and the Foundation for the Fight Against Injustice, an organization involved in spreading disinformation and founded by the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The false claims focus on issues that resonate deeply with the Armenian public. Five out of the eighteen claims accused Pashinyan of betraying Armenia’s national sovereignty — a topic that, according to public opinion polls, represents the population’s greatest concern.
One example is a claim published in October this year by the Turkish news portal OdaTV.com, alleging that Pashinyan had begun negotiations to cede 1,200 square kilometers of land to Azerbaijan in the strategically important Syunik region. Pashinyan’s spokesperson, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, stated that the claim is completely false and “part of a broader disinformation campaign aimed at undermining public trust ahead of the upcoming elections.”
Five of the false claims accused Pashinyan and members of his government of sexual crimes. This type of fabricated allegation has previously been used by the Kremlin against Moldovan President Maia Sandu, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French First Lady Brigitte Macron, and U.S. vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz.
The anatomy of a smear campaign
The anti-Armenian false claims accumulated 45 million views across eleven platforms: X, Facebook, Instagram, VK, Rumble, Bitchute, YouTube, 4chan, Threads, Rutube, and Telegram. They appeared in eight languages: Armenian, Azerbaijani, English, French, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and Ukrainian.
These claims were amplified through a complex narrative laundering system. For example, a widely circulated falsehood claimed that the French nuclear energy company Orano had signed a contract with Armenia to store its nuclear waste in Dilijan National Park, and that Armenian politicians received a €1.6 million bribe in return for the deal. This falsehood first appeared on June 25 on the website CourrierFrance24.fr — a newly created site presenting itself as a French news portal. The article was attributed to French freelance journalist Romain Fiaschetti, who denies any authorship and has filed a police report for identity theft.
Interestingengineering.com was one of the outlets that initially fell victim to the disinformation and was later forced to acknowledge the error.
Screenshot: Interestingengineering.com
The next day, the false story appeared on the site GreenArmenia.org, which was also newly created and falsely presented itself as representing an existing environmental organization. The GreenArmenia.org site vaguely cited “French media” as its source, but the story quickly spread on social media. It was shared by fake accounts posing as outraged Armenians, creating the impression of grassroots anger. The false claim was then picked up by both Armenian and Azerbaijani news portals.
The lie was amplified by AI
As it turned out, AI chatbots such as Perplexity, Meta AI, Copilot, You.com, and Mistral’s Le Chat also contributed to the spread of this falsehood. For example, Mistral relied on the fabricated article published in France and ignored reports that had debunked the claim. In a conversation with researchers, Mistral concluded with the statement: “Although investigative journalism articles and evidence presented by environmental groups support the claim, the Armenian government continues to deny it.”
Five of the eighteen anti-Armenian false claims accounted for an estimated 70 percent of all views. The most viral was a false claim alleging that Pashinyan’s brother planned to demolish a historic building to build a casino, which garnered 17 million views on X.
The most successful viral false claims featured typical elements: corruption involving family members and polarizing topics that had already stirred public opinion in Armenia.
On X, the smear targeting the Armenian Prime Minister’s wife was spread in English, among others, by the MAGA-leaning account @IvankaNews.
Screenshot: X
The same bias was exploited in a claim that Prime Minister Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, had stolen $3.4 million from the cancer treatment fund City of Smile, which she herself had founded. The article appeared on a site called “EULeaks.eu,” which presented itself as a European news portal and attributed the piece to France 24 journalist James Creedon.
According to City of Smile, no money has been stolen from the fund, and Creedon denies being the author of the article. EULeaks.eu is not a news portal but a newly established site with unknown ownership that began operating only at the end of July.
Russia’s attacks come at a time when Pashinyan’s political position is weakening — in June, only 17 percent of surveyed Armenian citizens said they would vote for Pashinyan’s party, Civil Contract.
In April, at the same time the first coordinated anti-Armenian false claims began to circulate, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy chief of his administration, to oversee influence operations in Armenia, according to the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti. Kiriyenko had played a similar role during the recent parliamentary elections in Moldova.
In a report published in July, the Berlin-based think tank Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center noted: “…the approach Kiriyenko appears to have proposed to Putin is straightforward: Russia should stop pretending and no longer conceal its interference in the internal affairs of other countries within the former Soviet space.”
Armenian politicians have acknowledged the intensification of Russian propaganda attacks and the difficulty in countering them. “Steps taken to fight such a disinformation campaign could be interpreted as attempts to limit freedom of speech, while inaction could be seen as a sign of democracy’s weakness and vulnerability,” Prime Minister Pashinyan stated in October.
