The Chairman of the Civil Contract Party Board and Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, said the June 7 elections in Armenia are about upholding the peace established with Azerbaijan.

Speaking during a pre-election campaign event in Dalarik, Pashinyan said their main objective in the elections is to preserve that peace.

“For more than two years, we have not had a single victim or injury on the border. Since independence, there has not been a single year without a victim or injury on the border,” he said.

According to Pashinyan, 2025 was the first year in which emigration from Armenia stopped and immigration began.

“In 2025, the number of citizens leaving Armenia was 8,660 fewer than the number of those arriving. Emigration has stopped, and immigration has begun,” he said.

Touching upon pensions, Pashinyan noted that since 2018 the minimum pension has increased from 16,000 drams to 46,000 drams.

“In 2022, we aligned the minimum pension with the minimum food basket. We can say that there is no hungry pensioner in Armenia. Now the pension is 46,000 drams, plus refunds from non-cash transactions. This means that we have effectively tripled the minimum pension in Armenia,” he said.

Pashinyan also referred to reforms and new programs implemented in the army, particularly the “Defender of the Fatherland” program.

“Starting in 2025, all students admitted to military academies who graduate, receive an officer’s rank, and serve in the army will receive apartments from the state upon completing their service,” he added.

According to Pashinyan, an additional $6.6 billion has been allocated to Armenia’s state budget since the 2018 revolution.

“The illegal house belonging to the former finance minister has already been sold in the United States, and the process of transferring 70 percent of its value to the Armenian state budget has begun. The house and land plot belonging to former Kotayk governor Karapet Guloyan are no longer his property, but the people’s,” the prime minister said.

He also announced that the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), which is already de facto state property, will soon become de jure state property.

The pre-election campaign for Armenia’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for June 7, officially began on May 8 and will continue until June 5. Nineteen political forces, including two alliances and 17 parties, have registered to participate in the elections.

The Civil Court of Yerevan has accepted for proceedings a defamation lawsuit lodged by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan against Samvel Karapetyan, leader of the Strong Armenia Alliance, according to court documents. 

Karapetyan, whose Strong Armenia Alliance is running for parliament in the June 7 elections, last week alleged that Pashinyan had brought “one ton of hallucinogenic mushrooms” from China, which he allegedly uses before every speech, and said the prime minister’s statements should not be taken seriously.

Pashinyan rejected the allegations in a video posted on Facebook. He said on Thursday that he had filed a lawsuit against Karapetyan.

The Armenian PM is asking the court to order Samvel Karapetyan to publicly retract his statement and to pay 6 million drams in compensation for non-pecuniary damage caused by defamation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described relations with Armenia as “close” and “allied,” but at the same time “complex.”

Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi after the BRICS ministerial meeting, Lavrov accused the West of attempting to sever what he described as Armenia’s mutually beneficial economic, trade, and investment ties with partner countries of the CIS and the Eurasian Economic Union, warning that Armenia could lose all the advantages of its membership in the bloc.

He said Armenia–Russia ties will be discussed during an upcoming Eurasian Economic Union summit to be held in Kazakhstan later this month. He added that he regretted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would not attend the summit, saying the meeting could have been a good opportunity to discuss all “outstanding issues.”

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced earlier this week that he will not attend the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit on May 28 in Astana, Kazakhstan, due to the campaigning period in Armenia.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk has once again said that Armenia will eventually have to choose between the EU and its current alliance, the Eurasian Economic Union.

In an interview with the Russian state-run TASS news agency, Overchuk said that Moscow would treat Armenia’s choice with understanding.

“Of course, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said, we will accept any choice of the Armenian people with understanding,” the deputy prime minister said when asked by TASS about Armenia’s closer ties with the West.

He said the Armenian authorities will at some point have to choose either to stay in the Eurasian Economic Union or pursue potential EU membership instead.

“In Armenia, there is talk about the aspiration to move closer to the European Union. We have repeatedly said that membership in the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union is incompatible. This is also very well understood in Armenia, and the country’s leadership has also spoken about the fact that they are incompatible. At some stage, they will have to make that choice, if they decide that they need to make such a choice,” TASS quoted Overchuk as saying.

The Russian deputy prime minister also said that Armenia is an allied state of Russia and that the two countries are united by deep and long-standing friendly ties.

“Moscow has great respect for the Armenian people. Armenia is a very close, allied country for us. It is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The human ties that unite us are very deep and very strong,” Overchuk said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently called on Armenia to swiftly choose between the EU and its current alliance, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, responding to Putin’s remarks, said that he previously discussed the matter with the Russian leader. “And I have said that until the moment when there is no need to make a choice—both de jure and de facto—we are not placing such an issue on the agenda,” the Armenian leader said earlier this week.

The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 15 May, USD exchange rate down by 0.55 drams to 368.23 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 2.78 drams to 428.95 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.0111 drams to 5.0312 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 5.49 drams to 492.77 drams.

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

Gold price up by 4 drams to 55442 drams.

Prosecutor General of Armenia Anna Vardapetyan received the newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Armenia, Khalil Shirgholami.

Vardapetyan congratulated the ambassador on assuming his diplomatic mission and wished him fruitful work for the benefit of the peoples of both countries, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Armenian prosecutor general expressed condolences over the deaths of numerous Iranian citizens as a result of military operations, particularly the tragedy involving students of the Minab school.

The ambassador thanked Vardapetyan for responding positively to the initiative for the meeting, emphasized the centuries-old close ties between the two friendly peoples based on mutual trust, and highly appreciated the current level of cooperation between the prosecutors’ offices of the two countries.

The sides also discussed issues related to the extradition of wanted persons, the provision of legal assistance and other matters of mutual interest.

Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, Rosselkhoznadzor, said it had reached an agreement to conduct inspections at several Armenian enterprises following talks with Tigran Petrosyan, head of Armenia’s Food Safety Inspection Body.

According to a statement released by Rosselkhoznadzor, the Russian agency will also inspect companies whose exports to Russia had previously been suspended over the “suspected import of falsified fish products allegedly of European origin,” following a request from the Armenian side.

The agency said a preliminary inspection and analysis of imported rainbow trout, including photographs, had raised doubts about the origin of the raw materials used in the production of the fish products.

Rosselkhoznadzor stated that the rainbow trout declared in veterinary documents did not correspond morphologically to the imported fish. According to the agency, the fish had colouring atypical for the species and an unusually large weight exceeding 5.5 kilograms, which, it said, indicated that the fish may have belonged to another salmon family or species.

The Russian agency added that, following the agreements reached and at Armenia’s request, it plans to inspect Armenian crop production enterprises to ensure the supply of genuinely Armenian and phytosanitarily safe products.

Rosselkhoznadzor also expressed concern over what it described as a growing number of quarantine organisms detected in quarantine-regulated products imported to Russia from Armenia by member states of the Eurasian Economic Union.

The statement added that the agency’s regional office has already tightened phytosanitary controls on quarantine goods supplied from Armenia to Russia.

Members of the Armenian National Congress, led by parliamentary candidate Levon Zurabyan, toured the streets of Yerevan on May 15 as part of campaigning for Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections, meeting and speaking with residents.

Zurabyan distributed campaign leaflets to citizens, presented the party’s programme and answered questions from the public.

Addressing problems in the public transport sector, Zurabyan said Yerevan’s infrastructure as a whole needs to be transformed.

Campaigning for the parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7 officially began on May 8 and will continue until June 5. A total of 19 political forces -including two alliances and 17 parties -have registered to participate in the vote.

The Armenian National Congress is running under ballot number 10 with the slogan “A Rational Path for Armenia.” The party has submitted an electoral list consisting of 99 candidates to the Central Electoral Commission.

Consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Kazakhstan took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, headed by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, David Karapetyan, and the Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Amangeldi Sainov, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a readout.

The Kazakh delegation participating in the consultations also included the Director of the Human Resources Department of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, Medet Makulzhanov.

During the consultations, the interlocutors touched upon a wide range of issues related to cooperation between the apparatuses of the Foreign Ministries of the two countries.

In particular, views were exchanged on the organization of diplomatic service, training and retraining of personnel, best practices in the field of human resources management, as well as steps taken towards the structural and functional modernization of the two ministries.

Both sides emphasized the importance of enhancing direct contacts between the respective departments of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and holding regular consultations in the context of increasing the efficiency of the diplomatic service and exchanging experience.