Russian Election Interference Targets Armenia 2026 Vote

Rus­sia has launched an elec­tion inter­fer­ence oper­a­tion tar­get­ing Arme­ni­a’s June 2026 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions through an unusu­al­ly ear­ly dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign. On 19 Novem­ber 2025, the Foun­da­tion for Defense of Democ­ra­cies report­ed that News­Guard iden­ti­fied Krem­lin-linked net­works Storm-1516 and Foun­da­tion to Bat­tle Injus­tice, which have been push­ing false nar­ra­tives since April to erode trust in demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and dis­cred­it Prime Min­is­ter Nikol Pashinyan’s pro-West­ern gov­ern­ment. The arti­cle begins:

Rus­sia has launched an unusu­al­ly ear­ly dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign tar­get­ing Arme­ni­a’s June 2026 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, accord­ing to a report pub­lished last week by the dis­in­for­ma­tion watch­dog News­Guard. Since April, Krem­lin-linked net­works have pushed false nar­ra­tives across mul­ti­ple plat­forms, aim­ing to erode trust in Arme­ni­a’s demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions, dis­cred­it Prime Min­is­ter Nikol Pashinyan’s pro-West­ern gov­ern­ment, and cre­ate insta­bil­i­ty that could help pro-Rus­sia actors regain influ­ence. The cam­paign comes as Arme­nia has sought to dis­tance itself from Rus­sia while align­ing more close­ly with Europe and the Unit­ed States, dimin­ish­ing Moscow’s influ­ence in a region it has long dominated.

Read more: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/11/19/russia-escalates-early-election-interference-in-armenia-as-yerevan-deepens-its-pivot-toward-the-west/

Key Points

• News­Guard attrib­ut­es the Arme­nia oper­a­tion to Storm-1516, a Krem­lin-aligned troll farm oper­at­ing fake news sites and coor­di­nat­ed social media accounts, and Foun­da­tion to Bat­tle Injus­tice, a pseu­do-NGO laun­der­ing pro-Krem­lin nar­ra­tives, both part of an infor­ma­tion war­fare net­work estab­lished by late Yevge­ny Prigozhin.
• Russ­ian actors fab­ri­cat­ed alle­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and sex­u­al crimes, forged doc­u­ments. They used arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to imper­son­ate Armen­ian and Euro­pean out­lets, with one viral false­hood alleg­ing land han­dover to Azer­bai­jan gen­er­at­ing more than 17 mil­lion views on X.
• Large lan­guage mod­els oper­at­ed by Meta, Per­plex­i­ty, You.com, and Mis­tral unin­ten­tion­al­ly ampli­fied dis­in­for­ma­tion sto­ries tar­get­ing Pashinyan’s fam­i­ly with bogus embez­zle­ment alle­ga­tions, with News­Guard find­ing AI sys­tems spread­ing fab­ri­cat­ed nar­ra­tives across mul­ti­ple platforms.
• Arme­nia sus­pend­ed its par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Rus­sia-led Col­lec­tive Secu­ri­ty Treaty Orga­ni­za­tion after Moscow declined to defend it against Azer­bai­jan, sub­se­quent­ly pur­su­ing EU acces­sion, sign­ing a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Wash­ing­ton, and agree­ing to a US-medi­at­ed peace frame­work that side­lined Russia.

Russian Influence Operations Target Armenia As Alliance Collapses and Yerevan Pivots West

Arme­ni­a’s decades-long alliance with Rus­sia is col­laps­ing as Armen­ian trust in Rus­sia plum­met­ed from 93% in 2019 to just 31% in 2024 fol­low­ing Moscow’s fail­ure to inter­vene dur­ing Azer­bai­jani attacks. Prime Min­is­ter Nikol Pashinyan sus­pend­ed Arme­ni­a’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Col­lec­tive Secu­ri­ty Treaty Orga­ni­za­tion (CSTO) in Feb­ru­ary 2024, trig­ger­ing a des­per­ate Krem­lin response that includes infor­ma­tion cam­paigns tar­get­ing Arme­ni­a’s pro-West­ern lead­er­ship and demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms. US intel­li­gence con­firms that Russ­ian-Armen­ian rela­tions dete­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly after Arme­nia announced poten­tial CSTO with­draw­al, with Moscow launch­ing coor­di­nat­ed pro­pa­gan­da oper­a­tions in response.

Putin appoint­ed Sergei Kiriyenko, his First Deputy Chief of Staff, to lead “infor­ma­tion­al work” and groom Krem­lin-approved oppo­si­tion fig­ures ahead of Arme­ni­a’s 2026 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. Three depart­ments with­in Rus­si­a’s Pres­i­den­tial Admin­is­tra­tion now coor­di­nate influ­ence efforts focused on shap­ing pub­lic opin­ion through dig­i­tal cam­paigns and cul­ti­vat­ing pro-Russ­ian polit­i­cal oper­a­tives. A News­Guard analy­sis doc­u­ment­ed 18 false claims spread through Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions tar­get­ing Arme­nia, includ­ing fab­ri­cat­ed sto­ries about ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­ces­sions to Azer­bai­jan designed to exploit Armen­ian con­cerns about nation­al sov­er­eign­ty. Russ­ian sources them­selves acknowl­edge there is “no one to speak for Rus­sia” in Arme­nia except aging ex-pres­i­dents taint­ed by cor­rup­tion, whose polit­i­cal ini­tia­tives have repeat­ed­ly failed.

Mean­while, Arme­nia has method­i­cal­ly reduced insti­tu­tion­al depen­den­cies on Moscow by wel­com­ing EU civil­ian bor­der mis­sions and launch­ing strate­gic dia­logue with the Unit­ed States focused on demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms and secu­ri­ty coop­er­a­tion. The coun­try launched the EU mem­ber­ship process in April 2025, mark­ing a dra­mat­ic piv­ot toward West­ern inte­gra­tion. Russ­ian bor­der guards com­plet­ed their with­draw­al from Yere­van’s inter­na­tion­al air­port in July 2025, end­ing a pres­ence main­tained since inde­pen­dence. The Nagorno-Karabakh con­flict remains a focal point for mul­ti-coun­try influ­ence oper­a­tions, with Rus­sia his­tor­i­cal­ly posi­tion­ing itself as a neu­tral medi­a­tor while using pro-Krem­lin out­lets to spread anti-West­ern con­spir­a­cies and impli­cate Ukrain­ian involve­ment with­out evidence.

Exter­nal References:

• The Moscow Times — Arme­nia Is Break­ing Up With Rus­sia – And Putin Can’t Stop It
• EVN Report — Sub­ver­sion and Elec­toral Inter­fer­ence: Rus­sia and Arme­ni­a’s 2026 Elections
• News­Guard — Rus­sia Tar­gets Arme­ni­a’s Elec­tions — Ear­ly and Viciously

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