Armenia: Russian Pressure Rises Ahead of Polls
Yerevan is diversifying its security, economic and diplomatic partnerships – but the Kremlin is not happy.
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Ahead of pivotal parliamentary elections, analysts warn Armenia faces an “unprecedented, highly coordinated” surge of external interference and disinformation campaigns intended to skew the outcome.
In recent years, Yerevan has taken decisive steps to diversify its security, economic, and diplomatic partnerships beyond its traditional reliance on Russia.
Since the end of the more than three-decade-long Karabakh conflict in 2023, Armenia has entered a period of strategic realignment shaped by a peace deal with Azerbaijan, mediated by US President Donald Trump, and parallel outreach to the EU.
As the June 7 elections approach, this process has only accelerated.
An EU-Armenia summit and the 8th European Political Community summit in early May brought together around 50 world leaders and followed Yerevan’s 2025 declaration it would formally apply for membership.
On May 24, Armenia reached an agreement with Turkey and Georgia to open the Akhalkalaki-Kars railway for Armenian imports and exports. The move is expected to reduce trade transaction costs and forms part of the broader Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). This infrastructure corridor traversing southern Armenia to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave was brokered by Washington as a key element of the peace deal.
Two days later, during a brief visit to Armenia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the deal as “the biggest step to date” in advancing regional peace and development, also expressing support for the country’s leadership and reforms.
However, Armenia’s accelerated strategic shifts have not been viewed favourably by Russia.
Moscow’s diplomatically threatening rhetoric is only intensifying as polls indicate that the political party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has made it clear he intends to pursue a pro-European direction, remains favourite to win in the June 7 election.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has explicitly linked Armenia's integration process to the consequences Ukraine faced after shifting its own geopolitical orientation, cautioning against developments that led to political instability and armed conflict.
“We are now worrying about everything that is happening on the Ukrainian direction,” he told reporters on May 9. “And where did it start? With Ukraine’s accession, or attempted accession, to the EU.”
“Everything that followed then led to a coup d’état, the Crimea developments, the position of southeastern Ukraine, and armed conflict. That is what it all led to. This is a serious question.”
While Russian officials signal potential economic and security consequences for Armenia’s strategic direction and new geopolitical aspirations, it is already utilising a separate wave of coercive tactics, including disinformation and cyber-enabled influence operations.
Artur Papyan, co-founder of digital security network CyberHUB-AM, warned that Armenia was currently experiencing “an unprecedented, highly coordinated surge in hybrid operations”.
As well as a torrent of disinformation, this included massive, coordinated DDoS attacks - malicious attempts to disrupt networks by overwhelming them with fraudulent internet traffic - targeting critical state infrastructure.
Research indicated that Russia and affiliated networks were deploying adaptive information manipulation and interference systems to achieve their aims. These combined proxy actors, narrative manufacturing, emotional targeting and platform-specific amplification, particularly during the ongoing political transition and electoral cycle.
“The primary foreign malign footprints of information campaigns in particular point to state-linked Russian influence networks, such as the Russian Social Design Agency, which orchestrates sophisticated, multi-platform operational frameworks like Doppelganger and Matrioska to manipulate the domestic information space,” said Papyan.
The overall objective of these efforts was to influence Armenia’s strategic decision-making and preserve it under Russia's traditional sphere of influence.
“The dominant narrative threats systematically weaponise existential anxiety and historical traumas, falsely portraying European integration as a threat to local identity while fabricating stories about territorial concessions or foreign military footprints,” said Papyan. “A stark example of this is the recent deployment of sophisticated generative AI deepfakes, such as fully fabricated campaigns under the guise of an artificial Armenian Queer Union meant to trigger polarisation and link the ruling authorities to controversial social wedge issues.”
Beyond cyber and media operations, Armenia’s vulnerability is also shaped by historical and identity-based dynamics. Anthropologist Hranush Kharatyan explained that collective memory in Armenia was divided by distinct historical experiences.
“In the first group, especially among middle-aged and older generations, the dominant collective memory is that of the loss of the homeland,” she continued. “In the second group, it is the loss of the First Republic in 1918-1920 and a sense of naïve trust in the Soviet Union and modern Russia.”
“Foreign policy debates are often reduced to binary identity labels, such as Russophile, Turkophile or Europhile rather than programmatic political discussion,” Kharatyan said. “This dynamic contributes to persistent polarisation that is likely to extend beyond the election cycle.”
Gender-based targeting has also emerged as one of the dimensions of ongoing election campaigns.
“There have been cases of targeting women by exploiting their gender and sexualizing the image of female public figures, as well as attempts to ‘put them in their place’,” noted strategic communication expert Narine Yeganyan. “In an environment of media polarisation and extreme political intolerance, fertile ground is created for the spread of both gender-based and identity-based disinformation.”
Russia’s hybrid tactics have been anticipated by Armenia’s allies as well as domestic civil society and media networks. In April, the EU approved a two-year civilian mission for Armenia, designed to counter Russian disinformation, cyberattacks and illicit financial flows.
And while the latest poll published by the International Republican Institute (IRI) showed that Armenians were largely confident that the upcoming elections would be free and fair, and continued to support European integration, some ambivalence persisted; asked which was their country’s most trusted international partner, 35 per cent chose Russia and 34 per cent the EU.
“Armenia’s primary resilience gap lies in a historically reactive posture, where state and media responses often suffer from a communication vacuum or arrive too late to mitigate psychological and cognitive harm,” Papyan said. “To address this, we must transition from simple debunking to a proactive ‘whole-of-society’ approach.”
Experts also suggest more robust communication strategies and stronger regulatory frameworks to address existing structural gaps.
“The adoption of and adherence to ethical codes could serve as a potential solution,” said Yeganyan, “provided that an effective monitoring body exists and that violations result in appropriate consequences, at least for the political forces participating in the campaign.”
