On June 7, Armenia — a landlocked nation of 3 million tucked between Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan — is to hold its parliamentary elections. The outcome, Western intelligence officials say, has become a proxy contest between Washington and Moscow, Donald Trump versus Vladimir Putin.
Current Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who leads in the opinion polls, has spent six years dismantling Armenia’s alignment with Russia. Putin’s regime, according to an exclusive news investigation by Reuters published this week, has been running a covert operation to ensure he loses.
Pashinyan suspended the country’s membership in Moscow’s regional security alliance in 2024. In March 2025, the Armenian parliament voted to begin proceedings to join the European Union. On Wednesday, Trump publicly endorsed Pashinyan’s re-election bid. That came just days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio flew to Yerevan to sign a minerals deal and formalise a proposed transit corridor through Armenia’s south that would open Central Asia to Western trade. That trade corridor is to carry the name ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’.
A new Kremlin department
Russia established a new department in October called the Directorate for Strategic Cooperation and Partnership, which is overseeing the influence operation in Armenia, according to five unnamed Western intelligence officials cited by Reuters.
The operational contractor is the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Kremlin-funded organisation whose writers, translators, and video producers have run propaganda campaigns across Europe, Reuters noted.
The SDA was sanctioned by the EU for spreading disinformation to undermine support for Ukraine which also faced Putin’s anger over an EU-wards shift. The SDA was sanctioned also by Britain on May 11 among 85 Russian individuals and entities over the Armenia election-influence operation.
The UK Foreign Office said the SDA had been “tasked and funded by the Kremlin to deliver a series of interference operations designed to undermine democracy”.
How info war is shaping up
One of the five Russian-language documents allegedly drawn up by the SDA proposed creating a media outlet called Yerevan1, to target Russia’s Armenian diaspora, with a stated objective of promoting a “negative attitude” toward Pashinyan around a “core narrative” that “Armenia can only prosper in a close alliance with Russia and under its protection”.
The SDA and Yerevan1 did not respond to comment requests by Reuters.
A separate Russian-backed online campaign falsely alleged a corrupt land deal involving Pashinyan and two US senators who had publicly expressed concern about Russian disinformation in April.
The campaign also involves a Kremlin-affiliated bot network known as Storm-1516, a European official told Reuters. This bot network also played a role in efforts to interfere with recent US elections, said the report.
Flying in the voters
The most logistically audacious element of the alleged operation involves people, not mere content. Russian officials have discussed physically transporting tens of thousands of Russia-based Armenians into the country to vote against Pashinyan, Reuters reported.
Armenians are not permitted to vote from abroad and must be physically present. The diaspora in Russia is estimated at over 2 million; dozens of flights depart daily between the two countries. Russian authorities calculated a cost of approximately $50 million to move 100,000 voters, three intelligence officials told Reuters.
By mid-May, the Kremlin had issued regional quotas specifying how many Armenians each administrative region should send and had requested administrators report on preparations. It was not yet clear if this number would be enough to close the gap between candidates.
A poll conducted earlier this month showed Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party leading at around 30%.
Moscow’s preferred candidate, according to three of the Western officials, is Samvel Karapetyan, a billionaire currently on trial in Armenia for allegedly calling for the overthrow of the government.
His party, Strong Armenia, stood at roughly 6%. Karapetyan denies the charges and the Russia link.
What Moscow fears to lose
Russia has applied pressure through official channels as well, warning Armenia it risked losing access to cheap natural gas and restricting imports of Armenian fruit, vegetables, flowers, and brandy.
“What Pashinyan is trying to do is a threat to Russia,” Thomas de Waal, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, told Reuters. Diversification of supplies “means Russia loses the virtual monopoly it’s had in Armenia”.
There are serious, ongoing concerns about Pashinyan’s personal safety too. In May, masked men in a video circulating online threatened to kill him; Armenian authorities are investigating. Elements of the US government, including the CIA, have covertly aided Pashinyan’s personal protection in recent years, Reuters reported, citing three people with knowledge of the arrangement. The CIA declined to comment.
Russia’s foreign ministry dismissed the interference allegations as “spymania”.
