ARMENIA’S WESTWARD TURN OVERSHADOWED BY PERSONAL RULE
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has won re-election on a promise to pivot towards the European Union and reset the country’s regional relations following the end of the country’s long conflict with Azerbaijan. His opponents campaigned to rebuild ties with Russia, which tried to sway the vote. Pashinyan’s abrasive campaigning style, however, further raises concerns over a slide towards personal rule, with police and courts targeting protesters, opposition politicians and religious leaders. European leaders currently deepening their engagement with Armenia must make it conditional on respect for the rule of law, political pluralism and civic freedoms.
Armenia’s 7 June election, won by the incumbent, could herald a regional reconfiguration, finally drawing a line under a decades-long dispute with Azerbaijan. With pro-Russia parties failing to take power, the result promises to bring Armenia closer to the European Union (EU). But the campaign also intensified concerns about Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s commitment to political pluralism and the rule of law.
After the conflict
Pashinyan was at the helm when Armenia lost Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023. The disputed territory lies within Azerbaijan’s borders but had a predominantly ethnic Armenian population. The two countries first went to war when the Soviet Union collapsed, with Armenia the victor in 1994. Nagorno-Karabakh, along with surrounding territory seized from Azerbaijan, became the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, a de facto extension of Armenia.
The conflict stayed frozen until September 2020, when Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, went on the offensive, reducing Artsakh to a rump territory linked to Armenia by a narrow corridor. Azerbaijan blockaded that corridor in April 2023, then attacked in September, winning in days. Nagorno-Karabakh emptied as over 100,000 people fled to Armenia.
A reversal this catastrophic might have ended Pashinyan’s career. Instead, he repackaged defeat as peace. He argues that a fixation on Nagorno-Karabakh held Armenia back, denying the country economic opportunities and yoking it to Russia through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led defence pact. Armenia was long Russia’s biggest ally in the South Caucasus, but when fighting resumed it offered no help, preoccupied with Ukraine and warming towards authoritarian Azerbaijan, whose rising economic and military power stems from its extensive fossil fuel industry.
Armenia suspended its participation in the CSTO in February 2024, announcing its intention to withdraw four months later. Pashinyan has simultaneously moved to develop warmer EU relations. In March, Armenia’s parliament adopted the EU Integration Act, formally endorsing the goal of membership.
Pashinyan campaigned on a pledge to finalise the peace deal with Azerbaijan, drafted last year, and normalise relations with Turkey, Azerbaijan’s closest ally. But Azerbaijan won’t sign until Armenia amends its constitution to remove a reference it reads as making a claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. Meanwhile relations with Turkey, which closed its border with Armenia in 1993, are haunted by the Armenian Genocide, in which Ottoman Empire authorities killed up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians during the First World War. Many European states recognise this as genocide, but Turkey point-blank refuses to.
Russia versus Europe
Meanwhile, the parties contesting power focused on repairing relations with Russia. Pashinyan’s chief challenger was Samvel Karapetyan, an Armenian-Russian billionaire whose Tashir Group has extensive construction, energy and retail interests in Russia. There’s little question of where his allegiances lie. In 2018, he appeared on a US list of oligarchs and politicians tied to Vladimir Putin, and his Russian passport reportedly connects him to the country’s main intelligence service, the Federal Security Service.
Like many recent elections in former Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries, Armenia’s vote was seized on as an east-west contest, with EU states and Russia each pushing for an outcome that weakened ties with the other. Both made their preferences clear. In May, Armenia hosted the annual summit of the European Political Community, a broad grouping of states formed in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The EU also held its first summit with Armenia and agreed to create a mission to combat foreign interference and make trade and visa concessions. French President Emmanuel Macron made no secret of his backing for Pashinyan.
Russia, meanwhile, mounted what was reportedly its most intensive influencing operation since its failed attempt to affect Moldova’s October 2025 election. Details are murky, but Russia’s campaign reportedly used bot farms to spread disinformation, including fake videos that smeared Pashinyan and boosted Karapetyan. There was even an alleged plan to bring 100,000 Russian-based Armenians to the country to cast their votes.
Some measures were more overt. Putin warned that if Armenia continued down its current path it could face a ‘Ukraine scenario’ and hinted that prices of Russian gas could rise. In the weeks before the vote, Russia applied economic pressure by restricting Armenian imports, including brandy, fruit and vegetables.
Russia’s efforts failed, and may have backfired, galvanising pro-European voters behind Pashinyan, while his supporters may have talked up the threat. Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party took just under half the vote and now holds 64 of 105 National Assembly seats. Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia became the main opposition with 29 seats, with the rest held by another pro-Russia party, Armenia Alliance.
Controversy has followed. The electoral commission annulled results from several polling stations, citing violations that may have affected results, but ordered no reruns. Its decisions affected the pro-Russia Prosperous Armenia party, which fell just short of the threshold for parliament. Its exclusion means extra seats for Civil Contract. Given that Civil Contract members of parliament had nominated the commission’s chair, the move raised political interference concerns.
Rising concerns
Europe’s leaders rightly deplored Russia’s interference but have said nothing about such evidence of ruling party advantage. In rushing to embrace Pashinyan, they risk overlooking other warning signs.
Pashinyan came to power in the 2018 Velvet Revolution, when outgoing two-term president Serzh Sargsyan had himself installed as prime minister in a blatant attempt to cling to power. Mass protests, during which Pashinyan was detained, forced Sargsyan out, and Pashinyan won a convincing mandate at the December 2018 election. But in recent years he’s adopted a more combative and populist approach, bolstered by a strong social media presence.
His sharpest dispute is with the Armenian Apostolic Church, a pillar of identity in a country that prides itself on being the world’s first officially Christian nation. Ninety-five per cent of Armenians say they belong to the church. Religious leaders grew more critical of the government over the Nagorno-Karabakh defeat and peace negotiations, while Pashinyan accuses them of corruption. Each sees the other as overstepping its role, and each is questioning the other’s legitimacy.
Last year, Pashinyan published a series of hostile Facebook posts crudely implying that senior clerics had breached celibacy vows and branding the church as ‘anti-national’ and ‘anti-state’, pledging to lead its ‘liberation’. The debate descended to a bizarre row over whether Pashinyan was circumcised, which he offered visibly to disprove. Police arrested several clerics, and Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan was sentenced to two years in prison after calling for a military coup.
When Karapetyan spoke out in support of the church, police raided his home and put him in pretrial detention, and Pashinyan published a string of social media posts attacking him. Authorities raided his businesses, threatened to nationalise the electricity network he owns and even closed down a pizza chain he controls on dubious health and safety grounds. Local authorities in Yerevan removed billboards and posters calling for his release.
In response, Karapetyan founded Strong Armenia party. Eventually released on house arrest, he had to campaign from home. Other opposition figures have been arrested and pro-Karapetyan protesters detained, and Pashinyan has threatened opposition leaders with arrest. Just ahead of voting, Pashinyan publicly suggested parties should ask the electoral commission to ban Strong Armenia, and the leader of a minor pro-EU party obliged.
Pashinyan isn’t just picking fights with fellow leaders. He’s also punching down. In May, Arthur Osipian, an activist who lived in Nagorno-Karabakh, argued with Pashinyan at a campaign event, criticising his policies on the territory. Pashinyan responded by calling him a ‘scumbag’ and asked why he hadn’t died defending his homeland. Arguments like these were a feature of the campaign, and Pashinyan has called other displaced people ‘runaways’. Osipian paid a high price, detained on public order charges and released only after the election.
Behind the lurid headlines lies quieter evidence of a decay in respect for the rule of law and key freedoms. Civil society has flagged growing concerns over Civil Contract’s use of state resources and its sway over the judiciary and law enforcement, which has enabled politically motivated surveillance and prosecutions of government critics.
Press watchdogs report worsening media freedom conditions, with political attacks on journalists, defamation lawsuits filed by public officials and compromised state media neutrality. Changes to the audiovisual media law made last December give the state broad powers to act against ‘propaganda of violence and cruelty’. In November, police arrested two anti-government podcasters and put them in pretrial detention for insulting Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan.
Protesters have faced the same treatment. In March, two activists were detained and fined for arguing with Simonyan at a protest demanding publication of a parliamentary report on Nagorno-Karabakh. Iranians based in Armenia who’ve been protesting against Iran’s theocratic regime have also reported security force harassment and intimidation following criticism by Iran’s ambassador to Armenia. One of their protests was banned in January and participants detained.
Challenges ahead
Pashinyan lacks the two-thirds supermajority needed to trigger the constitutional referendum that would finalise the peace deal. This implies he’ll have to cooperate with the pro-Russia politicians he’s repeatedly vilified and threatened and whom he vowed in his victory speech to arrest.
He must also balance east and west. He envisions Armenia acting as a regional economic hub, anchored by a Donald Trump-backed plan to build transport and pipelines connecting it to Azerbaijan, Turkey and Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan’s exclave between Armenia and Turkey. But its economy remains closely linked to Russia. Around 40 per cent of its exports go there and it has benefited financially from Russian businesses and citizens relocating since Russia went to war against Ukraine.
Navigating these pressures will demand the opposite of Pashinyan’s combative instincts. It will take governance institutions that are stronger than any leader and firm guarantees of essential freedoms, alongside vigilance against covert Russian influence. The danger is that Europe’s leaders, eager to curb Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus, mistake a useful partner for a fully democratic one. European states should choose caution over denial, making deeper engagement with Armenia contingent on Pashinyan’s respect for the rule of law, pluralism and civic freedoms. They should step up their support for Armenian civil society, the surest check on the drift towards one-man rule.
OUR CALLS FOR ACTION
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Armenia’s government must respect and protect the rule of law, political pluralism and civic freedoms.
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The European Union and Armenia’s other international partners must make deeper engagement conditional on rule of law and civic and democratic freedom commitments rather than geopolitical convenience.
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International partners should expand support for Armenian civil society as a safeguard against personal rule.
For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected]
Cover photo by Karen Minasyan/AFP
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Armenia’s 2026 Election: Between Geopolitical Rivalry, Domestic Fear, and the
BY RAFFY ARDHALDJIAN
As Armenia emerged from its pivotal June 7, 2026 parliamentary elections, citizens felt that their vote represented an existential choice for the country’s strategic alignment. With a voter turnout of approximately 59 percent (the highest rate seen since 2017) voters handed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party a victory with 49.7 percent of the vote. This outcome grants them a 64-seat majority in the 105-seat legislature, including ethnic minority mandates.
The opposition’s Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia alliance finished second with 23.3 percent (29 seats), followed by former President Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia alliance at 9.9 percent (12 seats). While all three political forces comfortably passed the legal threshold to enter the National Assembly, it remains unclear whether the two opposition alliances will choose to boycott parliament or follow through on their pledges to challenge the finalized results in court.
While the parliamentary election was “procedurally sound”, the resulting mandate for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling party seemed deeply flawed and tainted by a highly distorted, polarized, and coercive political environment, as my colleague Hrair Balian argues in his recent Modern Diplomacy article. Stepping back from the immediate political noise, it is worth examining the broader environment in which these elections took place. As Greg Sarkissian noted in Armenia After the Election: Beyond Old Divides, Armenia’s political debate should now move beyond questions of patriotism and simplistic geopolitical labels. Viewed through that lens, the 2026 election was not merely a contest between Armenian parties, but a reflection of two powerful forces – geopolitical rivalry and fear- that continue to obscure the absence of a coherent Armenian-centered national strategy. The discussion below explores the broader geopolitical forces and voter anxieties that helped shape the election.
Geopolitical Rivalry
Against a backdrop of structural shifts in the global order, Armenia’s 2026 legislative elections occurred amid heightened geopolitical competition in the South Caucasus. The electoral cycle highlighted a profound domestic anxiety regarding the preservation of democratic institutions, national security, and sovereign identity during a protracted post-Soviet transition. While foreign powers aggressively utilized public endorsements and diplomatic threats to influence the incumbent administration (and at times the opposition), their deeper strategic objectives remained concealed beneath standard rhetoric. This delicate regional environment was further strained by the volatile de-escalation of the U.S.–Iran conflict, which introduced a critical variable shift to the local balance of power.
Russia continues to seek to preserve its traditional influence in the former Soviet space, using security dependence and information pressure to warn Armenians against a decisive turn toward the West. In the run-up to the vote, Russian officials and state-aligned outlets repeatedly cast Pashinyan’s pro‑Western course as a risk to Armenia’s security and economic stability. As highlighted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, this pressure culminated at the May 2026 Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit in Astana. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan issued a joint statement via Sputnik warning that Armenia’s EU integration created “significant risks” to economic security, paving the way for a formal review to suspend Armenia’s membership benefits.
Neo-Ottoman Turkey and Azerbaijan (backed by Pakistan in select diplomatic and security domains) continue to push a regional order built around new transportation and energy corridors, including potential routes through Armenia’s Syunik region (the Turan route in their view), with both powers signaling that ongoing negotiations and de-escalation are likelier to progress under the incumbent Armenian government.
Meanwhile, the European Union, whose relations with Moscow have been fractured since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, sought deeper engagement in the South Caucasus. By holding high-level meetings in Yerevan and publicly embracing Armenia’s European trajectory just weeks before the vote, EU leaders underscored their preference for continuity in Pashinyan’s policy line. Though Armenian political discourse often cites a “collective West,” the reality is more nuanced: Washington and Brussels frequently cooperate, yet their long-term interests diverge. While both actors seek to secure access to Central Asian rare earth minerals, develop Caucasus transport & energy routes that circumvent Russia and Iran, and tacitly back the incumbent administration ahead of the elections, their primary strategic objectives differ. The United States views Armenia largely through a geopolitical lens as a transit corridor to bypass regional rivals, whereas the EU in the long run aims to structurally integrate Armenia into its economic, legal, and regulatory framework.
Iran, despite recent strain from conflicts with Israel and the US, emerged from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful military having not only survived, but with some favorable circumstances. It remains a key regional actor viewing South Caucasus developments through the lens of national security. Tehran has repeatedly warned against changes to Armenia’s southern border, maintaining its role as a potent factor in the regional balance. In the run-up to the June 2026 elections, this concern deepened into acute anxiety over the US-Armenia agreement on the TRIPP transit corridor through Syunik, which Iranian officials and state media aggressively framed as a Western geopolitical maneuver designed to oversee Iran’s northern border and sever its direct boundary with Armenia. Consequently, while maintaining formal diplomacy with the government, Tehran exerted rhetorical pressure on the electorate by amplifying opposition arguments that Pashinyan’s pro-Western peace course invited dangerous foreign rivalries at the direct expense of Armenian sovereignty.
Concurrently, China views the South Caucasus through a geoeconomic lens, treating the region as a vital trade link between Western China and Europe. Beijing has strongly backed the Middle Corridor transit network to secure reliable overland trade that bypasses traditional geopolitical chokepoints and insulates Chinese commerce from Western maritime sanctions. Meanwhile, India has emerged as a vital strategic partner for Yerevan by stepping in as a major supplier of heavy artillery, missiles, and anti-drone systems. New Delhi’s rapid military support for Armenia directly counters the defense axis of Pakistan, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, making the South Caucasus a key theater for India’s strategic interests.
Ultimately, none of these actors are neutral; each is driven by its own specific interests and preferred outcomes. Each relies on a different mix of security ties, economic leverage, and narrative influence to shape Armenia’s choices.
As geopolitical competition intensified, Armenia’s elections became increasingly entangled in the strategic rivalry of larger powers. Political messaging, media narratives, diplomatic signaling, and information campaigns sought to shape how Armenians understood both the threats facing the country and the choices available to address them. The result was a political environment in which voters were often encouraged to choose between competing geopolitical alignments rather than engage in a deeper discussion about what serves Armenia’s long-term national interests. In the case of a small state situated at the crossroads of rival empires, this may be the most subtle form of external influence: not determining how its citizens vote, but shaping the framework through which they interpret their choices.
Politics of Fear
Beyond the rivalry of empires, the second major factor shaping the election was fear. Armenian voters went to the polls after years of frontline violence, devastating territorial losses, the total displacement of the population of Artsakh, economic uncertainty, and persistent existential threats to the republic’s remaining borders. In such an environment, fear became a powerful force in political mobilization, weaponized by both external powers and local political participants
On May 10, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev directly intervened in Armenia’s political discourse by warning that “it is the Armenian people who will suffer” if any candidate other than incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power.
On one side, the incumbent administration anchored its campaign on the fear of an immediate, catastrophic war. By presenting normalisation efforts and border adjustments with Azerbaijan as the only path to survival, the ruling party implicitly messaged that any disruption to the status quo would trigger an instant, overwhelming invasion. Opposition factions were collectively framed as a reckless, war-mongering front whose ascent to power would nullify fragile diplomatic progress and plunge an unready nation back into conflict. For a population exhausted by near-continuous front-line losses, this narrative transformed the ballot into a raw choice between an imperfect, painful concessionary peace or total physical destruction. At the same time, the government portrayed itself as defending Armenia’s sovereignty against Russian interference, while arresting numerous opposition figures and accusing various political actors of participating in destabilization efforts.
Conversely, the main opposition alliances countered by stoking fears that the ruling party was orchestrating a slow, piecemeal surrender of the state. They aggressively attacked the government’s normalization agenda and regional transit initiatives (specifically the May 2026 TRIPP corridor agreement) framing them not as a path to peace, but as a dangerous framework that surrendered vital land and economic control to foreign interests. A central pillar of the opposition campaign warned that Pashinyan’s policies would ultimately permit the mass resettlement of Azerbaijani citizens within Armenia, permanently altering the country’s demographics. Furthermore, by alignment with the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the opposition argued that the administration’s pro-Western course was actively erasing Armenia’s national history and cultural identity to appease a hostile, pan-Turkic regional alliance.
As a result, many Armenians were not presented with a hopeful choice between competing national visions, but rather with two competing fears: fear of renewed war on one hand, and fear of gradual national decline on the other. The election thus became less a contest over Armenia’s future potential than a referendum on which danger voters considered most immediate and most credible.
The Missing Armenian Strategy
Amid growing rivalry between external powers, Armenian political discourse has become increasingly polarized between competing geopolitical orientations: pro Russian, pro Western, and more recently, a vision centered on normalization with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Missing from much of this debate is a serious discussion about how Armenia can realistically navigate this environment while preserving its sovereignty and advancing its own interests.
This shortcoming is not limited to the incumbent government. The opposition has also largely failed to articulate a convincing approach for dealing with great-power competition without becoming overly dependent on one external power or another. Likewise, given the military and diplomatic pressure exerted by Azerbaijan and Turkey, and the growing political, financial, and institutional influence of Western actors, it remains unclear how much of Armenia’s current geopolitical reorientation reflects an independently developed national vision and how much is a response to external pressures.
The deeper problem is that Armenian political debate is too often framed as a choice between rival centers of power rather than a discussion about Armenia’s own priorities. Throughout much of Armenian history, survival depended on navigating between larger empires, whether Roman and Persian, Byzantine and Arab, or Ottoman and Russian. In many periods, the primary political question was not what retrieval or strategy Armenians wanted for themselves, but which external power posed the lesser danger. Proponents of the incumbent administration argue that its current diplomatic pivot, including the normalization track and Western-backed transit initiatives, represents a conscious break from this cycle to build a modern, self-reliant state. Yet, while immediate physical survival remains the paramount strategic priority for the republic today, simply shifting dependence from a traditional regional patron to Western economic and regulatory frameworks risks repeating the same historical pattern. True endurance requires moving entirely beyond the defensive habit of choosing an external protector, focusing instead on internal institutional capabilities and an independent national strategy.
Thirty four years after independence, the central challenge is not choosing between East and West, Russia and Europe, or confrontation and accommodation. It is developing the political thought, leadership, and institutions necessary to define Armenian interests independently and pursue them consistently. Viewed from this perspective, the greatest weakness revealed by the 2026 election may not be foreign influence or political polarization, but the absence of a broadly shared Armenian vision capable of rising above the binary choices presented by both domestic politics and external powers.
Conclusion
Armenia’s 2026 elections show the difficult position of a small nation caught between the global plans of larger states and empires. While local issues certainly mattered to voters, the election environment was heavily weighed down by the strategic goals of foreign powers and the deep anxieties of an exhausted public. By forcing the conversation around competing terrors, specifically the fear of immediate war on one side or slow national decline on the other, both local politicians and foreign actors narrowed the political debate.
The immediate aftermath of the vote has only sharpened the domestic crisis following the 2020 war. Because the ruling party failed to win a two-thirds supermajority, the political landscape has shifted from a standard electoral contest into a deep battle, with the incumbents wielding state institutions against their opponents. The government has responded with aggressive legal and administrative actions against major opposition figures, prompting six opposition parties to unite in rejecting the results. This weaponization of state power proves that running smooth elections is not enough to secure a stable democracy.
This bitter internal warfare paralyzes Armenia at the exact moment it needs unity. A country consumed by existential domestic battles cannot build the internal stability required to resist outside pressure. To break this historical cycle of vulnerability, Armenia must look inward, focusing its energy on building resilient state institutions, supporting independent media, and shaping a unified strategy centered primarily on its own needs. Ultimately, the survival of a modern independent Armenia depends on the ability of its citizens to build a state capable of choosing a future based on national goals rather than collective fear.
Raffy Ardhaldjian is a Fletcher School graduate and advisor to tech companies, public institutions, and NGOs. In his spare time, he writes about strategic topics spanning Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora.
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Meloni criticizes Trump’s ‘made-up’ remarks that she ‘begged’ to be photograp
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has criticized comments made by U.S. President Donald Trump during the G7 summit, in which he claimed that she had asked to be photographed with him, The Guardian reported. “Neither I nor Italy ever beg anyone for anything,” Meloni said in a video published on X. The Italian prime minister said she was “astonished” by what she described as Trump’s “completely made-up” claims. “I do not know why the President of the United States behaves this way toward his allies; it is not the first time. I can only say that it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination toward the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence,” she added. Earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to Italian television channel La7, said that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had “begged” him to take a photograph with her during the G7 summit. “She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her,” Trump said. In response, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani canceled his planned visit to the United States. “President Trump’s serious and offensive words directed at Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend all of Italy. For this reason, I have decided to cancel my visit to the United States scheduled for June 21–22,” he wrote in a post on X. The G7 summit was held from June 15 to 17 in Évian-les-Bains, France.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 19-06-
YEREVAN, 19 JUNE, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 19 June, USD exchange rate down by 0.04 drams to 368.15 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.05 drams to 421.97 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.0028 drams to 5.0095 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 0.28 drams to 487.28 drams.
The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.
Gold price down by 1257 drams to 50140 drams. Silver price down by 24.41 drams to 801.91 drams.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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The manifestation of economic ignorance and illiteracy of Nikol Pashinyan and his team
Nikol Pashinyan declares that businessmen should adapt to the new markets, the opportunity of which has been provided by the government.
On the one hand, this statement is a manifestation of the economic ignorance and illiteracy of Nikol Pashinyan and his team, and on the other hand, of course, the ability to master information manipulation.
The government has decided to subsidize exports of agricultural and processing industry in new directions. And this is considered as a new market opportunity. In fact, in today’s oversaturated world, where even super players and super producers fight hard for markets, the Armenian exporter cannot simply find a new market or “adapt” to a new market thanks to government subsidies.
In that case, the main task of the government should be not to create problems for the businessmen in the already existing markets, where they have adapted, where they have logistical connections, where more or less stable supply chains are formed, where even in case of problems, there are more or less polished methods and mechanisms for solutions.
For Armenia’s modest size economy, for Armenia’s modest geopolitical role, this should be the government’s top priority: not to do anything that will disrupt the work of Armenian businesses in existing markets. Meanwhile, based on the political and governmental conjuncture, the Armenian government creates serious problems there, and tries to “compensate” them with information-manipulative skills, not with real new markets.
Analyst Hakob Badalyan
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Mihran Poghosyan’s party joins Samvel Karapetyan’s call for consolidation
The “Armenian Hamazkayin Miastunyun” party, emphasizing national unity and the joint struggle for Armenia and Armenianness, joins the call of Samvel Karapetyan, the leader of the “Strong Armenia” alliance, to unite all opposition forces. This is stated in the statement released by the party.
“We welcome and support the process of forming a post-election opposition coalition, being convinced that only with united efforts is it possible to overcome the challenges facing the country and ensure Armenia’s dignified future.
Strength is in unity,” the statement said.
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“This Euro-counterfeiting, Euro-terror has a price. I don’t rule it out, allegedly confirmed “
June: 19, 2026
Military expert Davit Jamalyan in his opinion, the scenario of terrorizing the Armenian society with war by the authorities is entering a new phase.
Our interlocutor has a similar opinion, because Nikol Pashinyan said during a briefing in the National Assembly and then in the Government that “Aliyev’s assistant came to Armenia because there were certain risks and these risks had to be managed.”
“The government continues to speak in the language of blackmail, because it does not have the desired result after the elections, that is, it did not get the desired 2/3 after the elections, and according to everything, it will not get it. I am sure that if our opposition takes the mandates, at least those represented in the parliament will be unbreakable.
After all, during five years, the government was able to steal and take away one person from each faction, they call this cattle stealing and they say it rightly. With today’s realities, it is impossible to steal and take away or buy 6 people, because of that, 2/3 will not have it.” of 168.am Davit Jamalyan said in a conversation with
According to our interlocutor, since Nikol Pashinyan needs to have 2/3, sooner or later he will go to extraordinary elections and in order to get what he wants in those elections, he will use the blackmail of war again.
“I think Azerbaijan will practically help Pashinyan in this matter, because if he didn’t shoot until now to demonstrate peace, now he needs to intimidate even more. I do not rule out that the Azerbaijani side will be active on the border in different parts of the border, maybe not in the TRIPP part, but it will provoke in other parts. Nikol Pashinyan is now in such a dead end that he will use any scheme here to get more votes. I do not rule out that the concept of “peace” that has already been established will be replaced by the concept of “preventing an imminent war”, stressed Davit Jamalyan.
In addition, according to him, there is also the other side of the problem, that internal political developments in Armenia are clearly directed from Baku on what to do and how to do it.
“Nikol Pashinyan made promises to Baku, and Baku will go with a demand so that those promises are fulfilled.
This Euro-falsification, Euro-terror has a price, it was done for one thing, to make Nikol Pashinyan go on an anti-Russian course, if he deviates, then the whole falsification will be put against him. This is the reason why Nikol Pashinyan’s situation is really very difficult.
One more thing: if Nikol Pashinyan goes with the scenario of early elections, our pro-state forces should be ready for that scenario.
In this situation, we should not break the society, because the figures obtained by the government are completely fake, if we look soberly, we understand that there is no such thing. There is a locality where Nikol Pashinyan did not receive a vote,” Davit Jamalyan said.
He does not rule out that the “peace has arrived” scheme will turn into a “let’s prevent an adult war” scenario, with which Nikol Pashinyan will try to strengthen his power.
“There is the potential to say “no” to Nikol Pashinyan, because very few people actually voted for him,” emphasized our interlocutor.
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RFE/RL – Armenian Oppositionist Prosecuted Again
- Naira Bulghadarian
An Armenian opposition politician was briefly detained and charged with spreading antigovernment “hate speech” on Friday less than one year after his release from prison.
Ruben Hakobian briefly spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service as he was being taken to a police station in Yerevan in the morning. Hakobian said he is prosecuted for his statements made in 2024. Police officers did not allow him to comment further.
Hakobian, 70, was released from policy custody several hours later. The Investigative Committee said he is prosecuted for posting on the Internet comments “aimed at inciting hatred, intolerance and hostility.” The law-enforcement agency did not elaborate on the accusation or confirm whether it stems from what he said two years ago. Hakobian’s lawyer, Varazdat Harutiunian, dismissed the charge.
“It’s Article 329 [of the Armenian Criminal Code,] which is widely used against opponents of the current authorities,” he said.
A former member of the Armenian parliament currently not affiliated with any party, Hakobian was already arrested in July last year on charges of calling for a violent overthrow of Armenia’s government. The charges stemmed from his interview with a pro-opposition TV channel in which he accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of systematically violating Armenia’s laws and said Armenians have therefore a legitimate right to revolt against their government.
The veteran politician was released from jail at the start of his trial in August. In a subsequent verdict, a Yerevan court fined him about 3 million drams ($8,000), rejecting prosecutors’ demand for a 3-year jail sentence. Both sides to the trial appealed against the ruling.
Hakobian’s son Samvel linked the latest criminal case to the June 7 parliamentary elections in which he ran as a candidate of former President Ronbert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance.
“I’m not surprised by what they are doing because we thought that if Pashinian succeeds in holding on to power he will go after oppositionists,” Samvel Hakobian said, describing the case as a “clear infringement on freedom of speech and pluralism.”
Samvel Karapetian, a billionaire leading the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance, was likewise charged with calling for a violent regime change after condemning Pashinian’s crackdown on the Armenian Apostolic Church in June 2025. The same charge has been brought against Gyumri-based Archbishop Mikael Ajapahian and about a dozen other people critical of Pashinian.
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RFE/RL – Tsarukian’s Firms ‘Raided By Tax Officials’
- Astghik Bedevian
Following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s pledges to “dispossess” his main political foes, the Armenian authorities have launched tax audits of companies owned by opposition leader Gagik Tsarukian, his spokeswoman said on Friday.
“Dozens of companies of the Multi Group concern (Tsarukian’s business conglomerate) are undergoing various tax audits these days,” Iveta Tonoyan told reporters.
Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC), the national tax service, did not confirm or comment on the reported audits. Tsarukian was charged with “larges-scale” tax evasion and banned from leaving the country last week just as his Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) accused the Central Election Commission (CEC) of illegally barring it from the new Armenian parliament elected on June 7.
The BHK was one of the three main opposition groups that ran in the elections. According to their official results, it lacked just a few dozen votes to clear a 4 percent legal threshold for winning parliament seats. Tsarukian’s party lost more than 200 votes as a result of the CEC’s highly controversial decision to cancel vote results in three precincts and not rerun elections there.
Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to imprison and “dispossess” Tsarukian as well as the leaders of the two other election challengers of his Civil Contract party. During the election campaign, he announced the impending nationalization of Armenia’s largest cement plant belonging to Tsarukian. He went on to promise to “return to the people” the tycoon’s properties, notably a hilltop villa just outside Yerevan, in case of winning reelection.
Tonoyan confirmed reports that Yerevan’s municipal administration has decided to unilaterally rescind a long-term lease agreement on land in the city center occupied by Tsarukian’s Multi Wellness fitness center. She said the decision is illegal and will be challenged in court.
“That area was leased to the Multi Group concern until 2065,” said Tsarukian’s spokeswoman. “[Multi Group] lawyers have already presented their objections.”
Critics portray Pashinian’s statements as further proof that law-enforcement authorities are acting on his illegal orders. Hundreds of opposition members and supporters were detained on vote-buying charges in the run-up to the elections. The arrests continued on election day and in the following days.
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Armenpress: U.S. and Iran presidents sign ceasefire agreement
The U.S. and Iran released the text of an interim agreement their presidents have signed to end their war on Wednesday, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to resume attacks and kill Iranian officials if they failed to honour their commitments, Reuters reports.
Trump, attending the G7 with other leaders in France, also withdrew at least one of his stated rationales for attacking Iran in the first place, saying it would be “unfair” for Tehran not to have ballistic missiles, having previously vowed to obliterate them.
“We’re going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement,” Trump said of Iran at a press conference. “I don’t want them to. I want them to honor the agreement.” He also called Iranians “smart people” as U.S. and Iranian negotiators work on a permanent truce over the coming 60 days, which Trump said he hoped would usher in peace in the Middle East and lower oil prices.
Earlier, he had said: “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”
Iran’s leaders did not address the new threats while celebrating the moment, releasing photographs of what is believed to be the first agreement signed by both a U.S. and Iranian president since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979.
“Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; it was not even comparable,” Iran’s lead negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told state television about the agreement, which includes the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
The U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, assassinating the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military leaders on the first day. It quickly spiralled into a regional conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon; driven up energy prices; renewed inflationary pressures and sparked concerns about a major food supply crisis in developing countries.
The 14-point agreement extends a ceasefire announced in April by another 60 days, including in Lebanon, to allow the two sides to negotiate a final truce. Both Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian have digitally signed the memorandum in English and Farsi, U.S. and Iran officials said, with Iran’s foreign ministry saying the agreement was already in effect as of Wednesday.
Trump signed just before a grand dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, the site of the signing of the eponymous treaty that formally ended World War One.
The memorandum includes an immediate end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, the full resumption of maritime traffic “with no charge” in the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, the waiving of U.S. sanctions on Iran, the unfreezing of its assets, and a $300 billion investment fund for the Islamic Republic’s post-war reconstruction.
Oil prices fell again on Wednesday on prospects for the reopening of the Hormuz, the slender, vital waterway between Iran and Oman, with Brent crude futures below $80, at their lowest level since the war’s start. They later regained more than 1% after Trump threatened renewed violence.
Iran also undertakes not to build nuclear weapons, reaffirming a vow it had made for decades.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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