Upon a joint initiative of the European Union Delegation to China and the Embassy of Armenia, Beijing-based Ambassadors of the European Political Community countries met on Tuesday 19 May 2026 to discuss the future of security and prosperity of the European continent in the context of China’s role in global affairs, the European Union Delegation to China said in a press release.

“The representatives of the European Political Community countries agreed on the paramount importance of Europe’s strategic resilience. In the era of heightened geopolitical tensions, they also agreed on the need to maintain channels of communication and engagement with China open. The meeting was an opportunity to share assessments of opportunities and challenges regarding the political and economic relationship with China,” the European Union Delegation to China said.

The European Political Community brings together leaders of around 50 European countries in a spirit of unity and shared purpose. It provides a political platform to foster political dialogue and cooperation to address issues of common interest, as well as strengthen the security, stability and prosperity of the European continent. 

Since its establishment in 2022, the European Political Community has met eight times. During the most recent summit in Yerevan, Armenia on 4 May 2026 leaders discussed cooperation in strengthening democratic resilience, advancing connectivity and reinforcing economic and energy security. The summit took place ahead of the first-ever EU-Armenia bilateral summit.

The meeting in Beijing was attended by representatives of: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, European Union Delegation, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the UK and Ukraine.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Kęstutis Budrys, accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Mnatsakan Safaryan, visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial. Minister Budrys laid a wreath at the memorial and paid tribute to the memory of the victims of the Genocide,” reads the statement.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has called on Armenians to fully embrace the Republic of Armenia as their permanent homeland, arguing that continued focus on returning to former settlements risks treating the country as a “stopover” rather than a final home.

“We must ultimately acknowledge that the process of searching for a homeland is over. We have found our homeland, and that is the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinyan said at a campaign event for the Civil Contract party in the town of Spitak.

According to him, if the idea of returning to former places of residence continues to exist in people’s subconscious, then the Republic of Armenia will be perceived not as a homeland, but as a stopover.

“If in our subconscious there is constantly the idea that we must return to Van, Mush, Karabakh, Nakhchivan, then we begin to treat our country as a stopover,” he said.

Pashinyan compared it to the feeling of being at a stop during a journey, when a person cannot fully relax or feel secure.

“The entire meaning of today’s political process is that we are changing the understanding of the Republic of Armenia as a stop into the understanding of a place of destination. We have arrived, people,” the Prime Minister stated.

He also addressed Armenians forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, noting that they too should change the feeling of being in a “stop” and settle in Armenia.

“Now they have come here, and we want those people to settle down, to become settled like us, to change the feeling of a stopover into the feeling of a destination,” said Pashinyan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Tuesday that material released by law enforcement shows what he described as a “criminal-oligarchic” approach and a disregard for citizens by the Strong Armenia alliance, after the Anti-Corruption Committee published wiretapped conversations allegedly linked to vote-buying and other election violations.

Speaking to citizens at a campaign event for the ruling Civil Contract party in Tashir, Pashinyan said that the recordings released by the law enforcement agency as part of an ongoing criminal investigation showed the Strong Armenia alliance’s real attitude toward citizens, as well as toward displaced persons from Karabakh.

“Today the Anti-Corruption Committee has published another recording, which relates to the ‘Strong Armenia’ alliance. There is nothing new in the fact that money is being distributed, but there are two very important aspects I want to draw your attention to. The first is that in that party’s headquarters they discuss both giving and receiving money, and they compare and draw parallels between this and immoral acts. They compare the process of giving money to a citizen with entering into a relationship with a prostitute,” said Pashinyan.

According to him, this rhetoric shows the Strong Armenia alliance’s real attitude toward people.

“This is the real picture. And what is most notable is that those people supposedly protect our brothers and sisters displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh from us. Look at what they say in their offices and how they speak about our people from Karabakh, using the most vulgar and outrageous sexually explicit language.

This is the most typical feature of criminal oligarchy — treating people as goods, treating people as commodities subject to buying and selling,” Pashinyan said.

Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee announced on Tuesday that it had opened a criminal investigation into alleged vote-buying and other election-related violations involving a candidate running for parliament on the Strong Armenia alliance ticket.

In a press release, the Anti-Corruption Committee said several individuals were detained after authorities uncovered a scheme in which voters in Lori Province were reportedly offered financial incentives, including rent payments, to influence their votes ahead of the elections. The scheme was allegedly organized by a member of the Strong Armenia alliance.

The law enforcement agency said the suspects, in order to avoid detection and reduce the traceability of their actions, allegedly used intermediaries and vehicles belonging to them, mainly distributed funds in cash, involved employees of affiliated companies and individuals from their circle in the receipt and distribution process, and, to make monitoring of financial flows more difficult, planned to use Russian bank cards for financial transactions.

The Anti-Corruption Committee also released audio recordings reportedly obtained through surveillance, showing conversations between suspects discussing the scheme.

In the explicit recording, two men are heard discussing the alleged scheme, with one saying, “That’s life, you pay them and [expletive] them.” Another man is heard insulting Karabakh Armenians.

The Insider has published an extensive report on Russia’s possible influence over Armenia’s parliamentary elections scheduled for 7 June, the coordination of work on Armenia within the Russian presidential administration, and the officials sent to Yerevan to oversee the process.

The Insider opens its article with the following introduction:

“After recent failures in Moldova and Hungary, the Kremlin has redirected its resources towards Armenia, where parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 7. The Kremlin hopes to prevent incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party from winning after he pursued closer ties with the European Union and the United States. The Insider has identified who oversees the Armenia portfolio in the Russian presidential administration, which officers from the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the GRU, and the FSB were sent to Yerevan, and how Armenian opposition candidates are linked to Russia’s intelligence agencies.”

The outlet reports that the information campaign against Pashinyan is coordinated by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation for Strategic Partnership and Cooperation (USSP), established in 2025, which is headed by Vadim Titov, a former Rosatom official who is closely linked to Sergey Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration.

“Titov’s start in the post was not especially successful: ahead of elections in Hungary, he flew to Budapest with his aide, Yegor Kvyatkovsky, also a Rosatom official, but the campaign ended in a crushing defeat for Viktor Orban. Now, however, Titov has a new chance to prove himself.

The direct handlers for Armenia from the Russian presidential administration are Valery Chernyshov, head of the USSP department for developing interregional and sociocultural ties, and his deputy, Dmitry Avanesov. Both come from the security services. After serving at a Russian military base in Abkhazia, in 2013 Chernyshov was invited to join military intelligence. He taught the basics of sabotage work at advanced training courses for GRU officers in the village of Zagoryansky in the Shchyolkovo District, at Military Unit 36360. In the presidential administration, he first oversaw Georgia before being reassigned to Armenia,” the report states.

Dmitry Avanesov graduated from the Peter the Great Military Academy of Strategic Missile Forces and holds the rank of colonel. In 2012, he underwent training at the FSB’s Moscow Institute of New Information Technologies under a programme on “systems for assessing, analysing and forecasting the state of national security.” Both men have visited Yerevan on multiple occasions, where they held meetings with local Kremlin allies.

“In the Russian government, the Armenia portfolio is handled by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who on a near weekly basis warns Yerevan of major economic problems if it continues moving closer to the EU and the U.S,” The Insider notes.

Continuing its report, the outlet notes that among the most active groups in Armenia are the Gorchakov Fund for Public Diplomacy Support, which promotes narratives aligned with the Kremlin; the National Research Institute for Communications Development, headed by Vladislav Gasumyanov, a career officer of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service; and the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, described as an analytical centre linked to Russian intelligence. It also points to “numerous pseudo-political analysts, experts, councils, and organisations financed by the Kremlin.”

“Long-familiar figures, including senators Konstantin Kosachev and Konstantin Zatulin, are in the front ranks of the propaganda campaign against Pashinyan. Zatulin heads the international Russian-Armenian Lazarev Club, which boasts among its members the billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, owner of the commercial real estate giant Tashir Group,” The Insider writes, adding that it has also detailed the ties to Russia of two opposition figures in Armenia’s political arena – Samvel Karapetyan, leader of the “Strong Armenia” alliance, and Gagik Tsarukyan, chairman of the “Prosperous Armenia” party.

The Armenian Ambassador to Jordan, Arsen Arakelyan, has presented his credentials to King Abdullah II.

According to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, King Abdullah II of Jordan conveyed warm greetings to the Armenian leadership and wished Ambassador Arakelyan success in his tenure.

The Ambassador, expressing gratitude for the good wishes, conveyed the Armenian government’s readiness to make all efforts to further develop and strengthen friendly relations between Armenia and Jordan, which are built on historically strong ties.

Arakelyan is Armenia’s Ambassador to Kuwait and concurrently covers Jordan from his post in Kuwait City.

Armenia and France have agreed to strengthen cooperation in emergency response and disaster risk management after a meeting between senior Armenian rescue officials and French representatives, which ended with the signing of a memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation. 

The memorandum was signed by Armenian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Director of the Rescue Service Aram Ghazaryan and Bernard Jannin, President of ASPEBE, a French organization specializing in civil protection and emergency response.

During the meeting with the Ambassador of France to Armenia, Olivier Decottignies, and Bernard Jannin, Ghazaryan praised the effective cooperation between Armenia and France in emergency response and disaster risk management.

Referring to sectoral reforms, he expressed the belief that France’s civil protection experience could significantly contribute to the development of the Rescue Service’s capabilities.

Speaking about joint programs, the head of the Rescue Service highlighted the “Disaster Management” course, the “HOPE-2023” field exercise, as well as training sessions on crisis management and response conducted after the 2024 floods.

Also emphasized were the training sessions for 79 volunteer firefighters carried out within the framework of the “VOLFIRE” program with the participation of French instructors.

Referring to the history of Armenian–French cooperation, Ambassador Olivier Decottignies noted that the foundations of collaboration in the field of emergency response were laid during the 1988 Spitak earthquake, when around 500 French rescuers arrived in Armenia to take part in search and rescue operations.

According to him, this cooperation has since evolved into a stable and effective partnership.

The MoU envisages cooperation in the fields of emergency prevention, disaster response, and disaster risk management.

UN Department of Global Communications press release 

Household food security across Armenia is on an upward trajectory, according to the latest 2026 Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment (FSVA) report released today by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). 

The nationwide study reveals encouraging improvements while identifying critical areas where targeted efforts can help consolidate progress.

The FSVA was conducted among 4,210 households in Yerevan and all the regions of Armenia, to comprehensively analyze the food security situation among local population and displaced Armenians from Karabakh, its drivers and tendencies, as well as to identify food insecure populations and their profiles.

Key findings demonstrate positive economic and social shifts since the previous 2024 assessment. Food-secure households rose sharply from 26% to 33%, while the number of food-insecure households dropped from 20% down to 18%. Marginally food secure households also recorded an improvement as more families achieved long-term stability. Additionally, food insecurity among female-headed households fell from 23% to 21%, signaling vital headway for vulnerable demographics and underscoring the measurable impact of ongoing efforts to stabilize and reduce food insecurity. “These findings show that Armenia is moving in a positive direction, with stronger household food security and encouraging signs of recovery,” said Leila Meliouh, WFP Representative and Country Director in Armenia. “At the same time, the FSVA provides important evidence to help partners focus work where it can have the greatest impact – especially for households that are still building resilience to economic pressures and future shocks.”

Despite overall progress, approximately 550,000 people in Armenia remain food insecure, and the marginally food secure population remains at risk of becoming food insecure in the event of shocks.  

The 2026 FSVA shows a powerful trend toward long-term socio-economic integration among displaced populations. 83% of displaced respondents plan to remain in Armenia, a steep climb from 63% in 2024. In the meantime, 76% of displaced households now have at least one employed member, up from 47.6% two years ago.

These figures underscore a promising transition toward self-reliance; while signaling that continued social protection and economic support is essential to secure permanent household stability. Continuous, gender-sensitive monitoring remains a top priority to map how female-led households access steady income, social safety nets, and food.

Since 2020, WFP’s assessments have served as the data foundation for the Government of Armenia, international donors, and development partners. In a major step towards capacity transfer and national ownership, WFP is actively deepening its alliance with the Statistical Committee of Armenia to fully transfer FSVA tools, methodologies, and technical expertise to national institutions by 2028.

The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 19 May, USD exchange rate up by 0.17 drams to 368.21 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.06 drams to 427.9 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.0805 drams to 5.1541 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 2.29 drams to 493.59 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 467 drams to 54046 drams.