Senior Strong Armenia Party member arrested

Law14:40, 2 June 2026
Read the article in: Armenian:

A senior member of Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia Party has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and paying citizens to attend the tycoon’s rallies.

Alik Aleksanyan, a member of the party’s board who is not running for parliament on the alliance list, has been arrested, and a motion will be filed in court to remand him in custody during the investigation, the Investigative Committee said.

The law enforcement body said in a press release that a joint probe with police revealed that Aleksanyan — who led the “Mer Dzevov” (Our Way) NGO movement, a precursor to the Strong Armenia Party — allegedly concealed his true intentions and formally hired around 1,400 citizens under civil law and service contracts for different periods in the movement’s offices across Armenia, more than 400 of whom were also simultaneously employed by other companies.

During the pre-trial investigation, it was established that between October 8, 2025, and March 31, 2026, approximately 1.6 billion drams, €230,000, and $75,000 were transferred to the bank accounts of the “Mer Dzevov” NGO from the Tashir Charitable Foundation and affiliated companies “Inteko Energo” and “Tashir Capital,” linked to Samvel Karapetyan, under the labels of “donations” and “loan provisions,” allegedly constituting proceeds of criminal activity.

During the same period, Aleksanyan allegedly laundered large-scale illicit funds by disguising them as lawful activity, paying salaries and service fees to hired citizens, and materially incentivizing them to participate in rallies and gatherings organized by Karapetyan’s supporters, the “Mer Dzevov” NGO, and the Strong Armenia Party between September 2025 and May 2026.

As a result, the majority of the hired individuals either did not attend work or visited the organization’s offices only once or a few times per month, reportedly without being aware of the nature or purpose of their roles within the NGO.

Subsequently, Aleksanyan dismissed the employees without fulfilling the statutory objectives of the NGO.

Thus, according to the Investigative Committee’s statement, Aleksanyan allegedly disbursed 703,835,953 drams as salaries and equivalent payments from funds transferred to the NGO’s accounts through criminal activity, and an additional 59,428,521 drams as remuneration under civil law contracts, amounting to a total of 763,264,474 drams.

Around 500 individuals have been questioned in the ongoing investigation into the scheme.

Aleksanyan faces charges of material inducement to participate in assemblies under Article 236(2) of the Criminal Code and aggravated money laundering under Article 296(3)(3).

Samvel Karapetyan is currently under house arrest on unrelated charges, while his nephew Narek is leading the Strong Armenia alliance list in the parliamentary election on June 7.

Published by Armenpress, original at 

Turkish Press: Turkish President Erdogan, Armenian premier discuss normalizati

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
June 2 2026
Normalization process between Ankara, Yerevan is continuing via steps aimed at launching direct trade between 2 countries, Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells Nikol Pashinyan
Esra Tekin
02 June 2026ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday discussed ties between the two countries as well as regional issues in a phone call, said the country’s Communications Directorate.

The normalization process between Ankara and Yerevan is continuing via steps aimed at launching direct trade between the two countries, said Erdogan.

During the call, Pashinyan also voiced well-wishes to Erdogan for the recent Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Saying that Ankara is working for peace and stability in its region, Erdogan underlined that Türkiye will always support taking steps in this direction.

Pashinyan greets families during International Children’s Day celebrations in

Armenia17:51, 1 June 2026
Read the article in: EspañolՀայերենRussian

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday visited Northern Avenue in downtown Yerevan to extend greetings to children and parents attending International Children’s Day celebrations.

Pashinyan, currently on leave and campaigning for his Civil Contract party, spoke with children and their parents, took photos, and presented lapel pins featuring a map of Armenia.

Various events marking International Children’s Day are taking place in central Yerevan, particularly near Swan Lake and Northern Avenue.

Published by Armenpress, original at 

Սամվել Կարապետյանի աջակցությունը բանակին եղել է էական և ծավալուն. Դավիթ Տոնոյ

Լուսանկարը` armlur.am

ՀՀ պաշտպանության նախկին նախարար Դավիթ Տոնոյանը հերքել է իշխող քաղաքական թիմի ներկայացուցիչների պնդումները, թե հայտնի գործարար Սամվել Կարապետյանը 44-օրյա պատերազմի ընթացքում սահմանափակվել է միայն խաղաղության կոչերով՝ ընդգծելով նրա բազմակողմանի և զգալի ներդրումը զինված ուժերին։


Տոնոյանը պարզաբանել է, որ ռազմական գործողությունների ժամանակ բանակին ցուցաբերված օգնության կոնկրետ մանրամասները հանդիսանում են պետական և ծառայողական գաղտնիք, ինչի պատճառով հնարավոր չէ հանրայնացնել հստակ տվյալներ։ Այդուհանդերձ, նախկին նախարարը վստահեցրել է, որ «Տաշիր» ընկերությունների խմբի նախագահի աջակցությունը եղել է ծավալուն և համապարփակ։


Նա հավելել է, որ այս գործընթացը սկսվել է դեռևս մինչև 2018 թվականի իշխանափոխությունը և շարունակվել մինչև մարտական գործողությունների ավարտը, իսկ տրամադրված օգնության ողջ ծավալը պաշտոնապես արձանագրված է պաշտպանական գերատեսչության համապատասխան փաստաթղթերում։


Անդրադառնալով այն հարցին, թե արդյոք Կարապետյանն ամբողջությամբ հոգացել է պատերազմի օրերին բանակի սննդի ապահովման ծախսերը, Տոնոյանը նշել է, որ նման ձևակերպումը կլիներ կիսաճշմարտություն։


Նա բացատրել է, որ պատերազմական շրջանում զինված ուժերի օրական ծախսերը տատանվել են 3-ից մինչև 30 միլիոն դոլարի սահմաններում, և նվիրատուների տրամադրած ֆինանսական միջոցներն ու ռեսուրսները ուղղվել են տարբեր հրատապ գնումների և կազմակերպչական խնդիրների լուծմանը։ Պաշտպանության նախկին նախարարը շեշտել է, որ բարձր գնահատանքի է արժանի բոլոր անհատների և կազմակերպությունների ներդրումը, և հայտնել, որ Սամվել Կարապետյանի հետ որոշակի հարցերի շուրջ բանակցություններն անձամբ է վարել։

Asbarez: International Republican Institute’s Armenia Survey Misleads the Pub

IRI Released a Widely Cited Pre-Election Survey Ahead of Armenia’s June 7, 2026 Parliamentary Vote, Reading the Fine Print Reveals a More Complicated Picture Than Many Headlines Suggested

BY THE CENTER FOR ARMENIAN RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

When the International Republican Institute published its May 2026 pre-election survey of Armenian voters, the story wrote itself. Civil Contract — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling party — was polling at 38%. The opposition was fragmented, with no single challenger cracking double digits. Pashinyan, the data seemed to say, was cruising toward another term.

That narrative is not genuine. It is built on a series of methodological choices that, taken together, systematically favor the ruling party, and the way the poll was presented to the public made those choices almost impossible to see.

The Number That Led Headlines
Start with the 38% figure itself. Multiple Armenian media outlets cited it as the poll’s headline finding for Civil Contract, identifying it as the figure for “very likely” voters, but without clarifying that the full-sample figure told a meaningfully different story. What almost no coverage mentioned is that 38% is not what the poll actually found when you ask everyone in the sample.

Buried on page 31 of the published report is the full-sample vote intention question. There, Civil Contract registers 32% — six points lower than the widely cited figure. The 38% applies only to respondents who said they were “very likely” to vote, a filtered subsample of 1,186 people out of the 1,511 surveyed.

Filtering to likely voters is a legitimate and widely used technique in election polling. The problem is not that IRI did it. The problem is that the 38% figure circulated publicly without the 32% figure receiving equal prominence — leaving readers with an incomplete picture that the poll’s own authors had every opportunity to clarify.

When 84% of People Hang Up
The filtered headline figure becomes more concerning once you understand what the survey was drawing from to begin with.

IRI’s methodology section, page 2 of the published report, states the survey achieved a 16% response rate. Read that again: for every Armenian who completed the interview, roughly five others did not engage. They hung up, did not answer, or were deemed ineligible after contact attempts.

In survey research, a low response rate is not automatically disqualifying. What matters is whether the people who declined to participate differ systematically from those who agreed. And, in Armenia’s polarized political environment, a reasonable basis exists for concern. IRI is a U.S.-funded “democracy-promotion” organization with a long track record of supporting “civil society development” in countries like Armenia. Opposition supporters, many of whom distrust Western-aligned institutions as much as they distrust the current government, may be disproportionately represented among the 84% who declined. If that is the case, the sample is skewed before a single response is recorded.

IRI does not address this risk in its published materials. The 16% figure appears in the methodology section, but its implications for the results are not discussed. A reader who does not know to look for it, typical of most readers, would have no way of knowing it existed.

The Opposition That Barely Shows Up
The response rate problem has a concrete manifestation in the poll’s treatment of opposition parties.

IRI’s data shows Strong Armenia, the newly formed vehicle of Samvel Karapetyan and a potentially formidable opposition challenger, at just 6%. The Armenia Alliance, led by former president Robert Kocharyan, registers at 3%. Prosperous Armenia comes in at 2%.

These numbers are dramatically lower than what other polling in the same period shows. MPG/Gallup’s concurrent survey found Strong Armenia at 14.9%, the Armenia Alliance at 12.1%, and Prosperous Armenia at 8.7%. The gaps, roughly 9 points each on Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance, are far too large to be explained by the likely-voter filter alone.

What the filter cannot explain, the sample composition may. Page 3 of the IRI report includes a table of subsample sizes broken down by party preference. The Armenia Alliance supporter group contains just 46 respondents. At that sample size, the margin of error exceeds ±14 percentage points, meaning the true figure could be anywhere from essentially zero to nearly 17%. The report includes a footnote acknowledging that data for this group “should be interpreted with caution due to small sample size.” That caution does not appear in the press release. Cross-tabulations based on this 46-person group, how Armenia Alliance supporters view the economy, foreign policy, the fairness of the election, appear throughout the published report as if they were reliable findings.

Weighting That Looks in the Mirror
The methodological picture contains a third layer, less visible than the response rate but equally significant.

IRI describes its education weighting on page 2 of the report: the sample was weighted “according to the midpoint between the 2022 census data for those aged 18+ and the educational attainment level of IRI’s polling average.”

This is an unusual formula. Standard practice is to weight a sample against an external, independent benchmark, such as census data, to correct for sampling imbalances. What IRI describes instead is a hybrid: half census, half its own prior polls. The problem with using your own prior polls as a weighting input is that it is circular. If IRI’s previous surveys overrepresented pro-Western respondents, a plausible concern given the response rate pattern, then those biases are now embedded in the weighting target for the current survey. The correction mechanism itself contains the error it is meant to fix.

A Poll at War With Itself
Perhaps the most revealing problem is one that exists entirely within IRI’s own data, requiring no external comparison to identify.

The poll finds that 61% of Armenians say the country is heading in the right direction. It finds that 62% say they are satisfied with the work of the Prime Minister’s Office. These are strong numbers for any incumbent government. In most political environments these numbers would translate into a commanding vote share for the ruling party.

Yet the same poll finds that only 32% of respondents say they would vote for Civil Contract.

That gap, between 61-62% expressing approval and 32% expressing vote intention, is not a normal feature of Armenian politics or any democratic electorate. Governments that two-thirds of voters think are doing a good job do not typically poll in the low 30s on vote intention. Something is wrong, and the poll does not say what.

The most likely explanation is that the same sampling bias running throughout the response rate and weighting is inflating the approval numbers while the vote intention question, which requires a more definitive commitment, partially corrects for it. In other words, the poll’s internal contradictions are themselves evidence that the sample is not representative of the electorate as a whole.

What the Poll Is And Is Not
None of this means the IRI survey is worthless or fabricated. IRI publishes its full methodology, its subsample sizes, and its raw cross-tabulations, providing a level of transparency that actually makes this critique possible. The organization has conducted serious, rigorous research in Armenia for years, and its longitudinal data on public attitudes toward institutions, foreign policy, and the direction of the country is genuinely valuable.

The problem is not the poll. The problem is the gap between what the poll can reliably support and what public presentation of it invited people to believe.

A survey with a 16% response rate, a self-flagged opposition subsample of 46 people, a circular weighting formula, and a headline figure drawn from a filtered subsample rather than the full sample is a useful, but limited, instrument. It almost certainly tells us something real about Civil Contract’s support. It almost certainly tells us very little about the true state of opposition sentiment. And a figure of 38% — circulated without noting that the full-sample figure is 32%, that the Armenia Alliance subsample is flagged as unreliable, or that 84% of contacted Armenians did not participate, is not a complete or fully honest account of what the data shows.

Ahead of a consequential election on June 7, Armenian voters and international observers deserved to know the difference.

All figures and methodological details drawn directly from IRI/CISR “Public Opinion Survey: Residents of Armenia, May 2026” (fieldwork May 5–11, 2026; n=1,511; conducted by Breavis/IPSC LLC). Margin of error estimates for subgroups calculated using standard formula ±1.96√(p(1−p)/n) at the 95% confidence level.

The Center for Armenian Research and Analysis is a trans-national institute that provides investigative, analytic, and informational resources to public and private entities across the Armenian experiential spectrum.




Trump cheers on Armenia’s prime minister ahead of election

POLITICO
May 28 2026

Armenia is pivoting toward the West as frustration grows with longtime ally Russia.

U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday evening, calling him “a great friend and leader” ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on June 7.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Nikol completely shares my vision of PEACE and PROSPERITY for Armenia and the entire South Caucasus region … Nikol has my COMPLETE and TOTAL Endorsement for Re-Election on June 7, 2026.”

Armenia is pivoting toward the West as frustration grows with longtime ally Russia. The relationship with Moscow has worsened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2024, prosecutors in Armenia said Russia tried to overthrow its pro-Western government by staging a coup. In late 2024, Armenia froze its CSTO membership, a Russian regional counterweight to NATO, after disappointment at the Moscow-led bloc not supporting Yerevan in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Armenia has long been shaped by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan, which simmered for decades. The mountainous region is situated in Azerbaijan but was historically populated and governed mostly by ethnic Armenians. In 2023, Azerbaijan retook the region in a military offensive that forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee.

Trump invited Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan to the White House in August last year to sign a peace agreement and bolster his own image as a peacemaker.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Yerevan on Tuesday to sign a strategic partnership agreement between the two countries.

Trump added in his Truth Social post: “Soon, the United States and Armenia will break ground together on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which will transform the South Caucasus, and help our wonderful American Energy Companies gain access from Central Asia all the way to the United States.”

TRIPP, a transit, rail and road project, is seeking to connect Central Asia to Europe while maintaining peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Washington also hopes to boost employment in the region.

The EU held a summit in early May in Armenia, which has tentative designs on joining the bloc.

Russia Targets Armenian Cognac and Wine in Latest Trade Curbs on Yerevan

The Moscow Times
May 25 2026

Russia has suspended the sale of several Armenian alcoholic products, widening a series of trade restrictions that come amid increasingly strained relations between Moscow and Yerevan, Russia’s consumer safety watchdog said.

Rospotrebnadzor said Friday that it had identified Armenian alcohol products circulating in Russia that failed to meet mandatory requirements and ordered sales to be halted. The agency did not specify which standards had allegedly been violated.

The measure is the latest in a series of restrictions on Armenian goods introduced as relations between Moscow and Yerevan deteriorate. Days earlier, Russia’s agricultural watchdog announced temporary curbs on all flower imports originating from or transiting through Armenia.

Rospotrebnadzor said the restrictions applied to products made by Armenian producers Vedi-Alco, the Abovyan Brandy Factory and the Shakhnazaryan Wine and Brandy House.

Products listed by the agency included Getap Vernashen semi-sweet red wine and Vedi Alco dry white wine from the Legends ARNI line, Armenian Cognac 5 Stars and seven-year-old Shakhnazaryan XO cognac.

The watchdog said it had instructed importers and retailers to suspend sales and withdraw the products from circulation.

The announcement followed a similar measure a day earlier against Armenian mineral water brand Jermuk. Russian authorities imposed a full ban on its imports and sale, citing excessive levels of bicarbonates, chlorides and sulfates.

Rospotrebnadzor said consumers could be misled about the product’s medicinal properties, which it said could result in ineffective treatment and worsening health outcomes.

The restrictions come against the backdrop of deteriorating relations between Russia and Armenia, once one of Moscow’s closest allies in the South Caucasus.

Russian officials have accused Armenia of taking what they describe as “unfriendly steps,” including following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s participation in a summit of the European Political Community attended by Armenian leaders.

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has publicly criticized Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over Armenia’s decision to begin the process of seeking EU membership and for recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu has also accused Armenia of deliberately worsening conditions for Russian businesses operating in the country.

Putin has warned Armenia to consider the consequences of pursuing closer integration with Europe, invoking Ukraine as an example and suggesting that Yerevan should first hold a referendum on leaving the Eurasian Economic Union if it wished to part ways with Moscow “softly, intelligently and mutually beneficially.”

Read this article in Russian at The Moscow Times’ Russian service.

“The blame for the tragic death of Manvel Saribekyan lies on the shoulders of the RA authorities, yes

May 222026

Following the episodes of Nikol Pashinyan’s campaign related to the army, including the reaction of the leader of the country to the emotional but fair demands of the soldiers, the missing in the war, the parents and relatives of the soldiers who died in the fire in the Azat shelter, why is it that sometimes these people are not given the opportunity to speak, I remembered an anonymous article published in “Haykakan Zhamanak” in October 2010 article-editorialwith the caption “We continue to kill ourselves”.

At the beginning of the article, reference is made to the 20-year-old pastor Manvel Saribekyan, who was kidnapped by Azerbaijan at the same time and killed in Azerbaijani captivity.

“I don’t believe that twenty-year-old Manvel Saribekyan got lost, and the Azerbaijanis arrested the Armenian border violator. I am sure that it was necessary to find a “saboteur”, they violated our border and kidnapped the Armenian youth in order to weave an absurd anti-Armenian myth. Therefore, the guilt of Manvel’s tragic death lies on the shoulders of the RA authorities.

 I understand that with this statement I am attacking the reputation of the most combative army in the region, raising doubts about the reliability of our borders, but I don’t believe it. Maybe I’m wrong. What is that? if the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia makes mistakes every God’s day, I can make mistakes too. Especially since my mistake is unlikely to be fatal for Armenia. And the mistakes of Seyran Ohanyan and his owners not only plunge the country into the abyss, but also cause us to hear at least once a week that an Armenian soldier committed suicide.

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According to us, Armenian prisoner Manvel Saribekyan was killed. Or the beasts and monsters tormented him so much that the tortured young man saw no other option but to commit suicide. Both are possible… None of us can boast that falling into the hands of the enemy, we will not see suicide as the only way out. What kind of flaming definitions are being made about Azerbaijanis, how is the catchphrase “Turk remains Turk” making waves again?: How do these same people behave when a monstrous bot from our army is smacking the air? It is known how they behave. they blame those who raised the alarm about the situation in the Armenian army,” writes the anonymous columnist of Nikol Pashinyan’s family newspaper, perhaps himself, and continues.

“If they haven’t completely lost their human face, why don’t this same Seyran Ohanyan and his masters shudder to think that there are such monsters in the army that make a soldier’s life so hellish that he prefers voluntary death?” On native soil, in the environment of his fellow countrymen. Are those who promote suicide hypotheses really so hopelessly stupid, square and soulless that they don’t understand that suicide is something more terrible than murder? If a soldier commits suicide, isn’t it clear that he is in a desperate situation, having to hang the rope around his own neck? Isn’t it terrible? Why is no one punished after that, why the commander? not fired and judged,Why don’t the RA Defense Minister and Chief of Staff resign? Why?

Because Armenians are puppets, aren’t they Turks? Do they kill themselves tenderly or “suicide”?

Because our soldiers are romantic guys, they look at the sky at night and think how endless the world is and how small a creature man is, and feeling their own powerlessness against that mysterious world, they decide to die so that the “global” question marks don’t smack their young brains.

Well, we declared that a Turk remains a Turk, we spilled our beans, and then…? And what name should we give to Armenian Seyran Ohanyan, who after so many tragedies tries to justify even the sadistic officer of the famous video tape – well, he was drunk, they say, he is such a good guy when he is not drunk. What do you say… The tears of their mothers are tears, the tears of the crying mothers of soldiers killed in the army and “suicides” are tears? Why do they protect executioners and murderers with their teeth?

It’s not difficult, isn’t it, to judge the criminals and more or less openly present themselves to the society, to the grieving mothers and say, “I’m sorry, if you can… Those who do not see the innocent blood spilled in their own house and bravely wave their fists at Azerbaijanis from afar, will they be very angry if I say that they are protecting them because they are executioners and murderers? I say get angry. Those who sponsor executioners are more dangerous. By sponsoring them, the leadership of Armenia encourages the executioners – continue in the same spirit, we are the owners.”

Let us first remind here that Manvel Saribekyan (born on February 27, 1990), a resident of Ttujur village of Gegharkunik region, was captured on September 11, 2010. According to the information circulated, the 20-year-old young man had taken several cattle to the pasture, and lost his orientation due to the fog in the “Keghut” camp, ended up on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and was captured by the Azerbaijanis.

On October 5, 2010, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan and the Military Prosecutor’s Office issued a joint statement that Saribekyan committed suicide at the place of preliminary detention, but before that he was shown on Baku television, and also managed to claim that “the Armenian pastor is a detective who was captured during a sabotage operation.”

A month after the murder, only Azerbaijan decided to hand over Manvel Saribekyan’s body to Armenia in Tavush region. I myself was present, the picture was terrible. The Armenian pastor was subjected to torture, inhuman treatment, physical violence on his body and there were many traces of torture.

ECHR in 2020 too had recorded that Azerbaijan violated Manvel Saribekyan’s right to life. In other words, the European Court of Human Rights decided that in terms of Manvel Saribekyan’s death, there had been a violation of Article 2 of the UN Convention (right to life) and Article 3 of the Convention on Torture (prohibits torture and “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”).

Let’s go back to the article of “Haykakan Zhamanak” in 2010, where the RA authorities were blamed for the capture of the pastor, where, in fact, suicide cases within the army were equated with what the enemy did, and the behavior of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in 2026. He gets extremely angry when he is blamed for the blood of several thousand boys in the 44-day war, when he himself declared: “we could have prevented the war, as a result we would have had the same situation, of course, without victims”, or he gets excited and upset when the relatives of the boys who were burned to ashes by the fire in the Azat shelter remind them of this, they say to the leadership of the 2nd Army Corps of the RA Armed Forces released, a trial is underway. And shameful things are revealed in the trial. But Prime Minister Pashinyan forgets that he previously demanded the resignation of the Minister of Defense and the head of the General Staff in response to suicide cases.

By the way, after the fire at Azat’s residence, Vilen Gabrielyan, still a member of the CP, said the same thing in his conversation with “CivilNet”. demand 

“If I were in the opposition, I would demand the resignation of the Minister of Defense. But I’m not in the opposition, I’m Suren Papikyan’s teammate. therefore, I support him in solving the problems in the army,” Gabrielyan emphasized, asserting that the RA armed forces need a serious transformation, because the system does not work in line with the existing challenges.

As a matter of fact, Gabrielyan, who submitted an application to become a member of parliament again today, has softened his behavior and mentality.

In the context of the article, let us recall that during one of the briefings this year, journalists asked Pashinyan a question about the facts of the war crimes committed in the sovereign territory of Armenia, the shooting of Armenian prisoners and the torture of women, and raised the issue of the demand to punish the relevant officials and military of Azerbaijan, to which Pashinyan responded that the solution of the issue requires a broader perspective.

“I do not agree that we, you and I, should look each other in the eye and deceive each other, and even more so, deceive our people, because it is a double-edged sword. Those rumors exist now, and no one denies the facts, but we have to understand what we are talking about, and that is the trap from which we cannot get out,” he continued.

Can we remember Pashinyan’s journalistic claim in 2010 that? “The leadership of Armenia encourages executioners”? For Pashinyan, the executioner has always been and remains the former authorities of RA.

You will say that now there is a different geopolitical situation, “peace” has been established, but does the geopolitical situation cancel the question of the authorities’ responsibility in the cases described by journalist Nikol Pashinyan or the anonymous columnist, moreover, it is not about a few thousand victims… Of course not, and at some point, when Pashinyan becomes the opposition, won’t he return to the logic of the above-mentioned articles, even if we are dealing with different geopolitical situations?

Armenian official presents projects at Asia and the Pacific Transport Forum 20

Armenia13:34, 20 May 2026
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An Armenian official is participating in the Asia and the Pacific Transport Forum (APTF) 2026 — the Asian Development Bank’s flagship transport sector event in Manila, the Philippines, where he presented Armenia’s ongoing transport cooperation projects.

Narek Zulalyan, Deputy Executive Director of the Road Department, the state agency responsible for ensuring the effective implementation of transport projects in Armenia, participated in the “ADB Transport Investments: Past, Present and Future” panel discussion, where he presented projects implemented and currently underway in Armenia’s transport sector within the framework of cooperation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), possible directions for future planned investments, as well as prospects for the sector’s strategic development and international cooperation.

Published by Armenpress, original at 

Russia continues to pressure Armenia with words and deeds

May 20 2026

Russia continues to pressure Armenia with words and deeds

Former Russian Defense Minister, and now Secretary of the Security Council, Sergei Shoigu stated that the recent actions of the Armenian authorities do not correspond to allied relations with Russia and are unfriendly in nature. He expressed a number of complaints to the Armenian side.


According to Sergei Shoigu, in 2025-2026, Armenia began to focus on cooperation with countries that Russia considers unfriendly. He also criticized the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, which, he claimed, was disrespect for the memory of Armenians who fought against Nazism.


Shoigu emphasized that Russia supplies Armenia with a number of important goods — gas, grain, flour, fertilizers, and gasoline — at significantly lower prices, approximately three times below market rates. At the same time, he questioned how profitable it would be for Armenia to supply its products, such as apricots, trout, and mineral water, to European Union countries.


He also noted that cooperation with Russia is the foundation of Armenia’s economy, and added that in the 1990s, thanks to Russia, the country was able to preserve its sovereignty.


These statements by Shoigu are not accidental, as in parallel, Rosselkhoznadzor announced that it would impose restrictions on the import of flowers from Armenia starting May 22.


“The decision was made to protect Russia’s phytosanitary well-being and export potential. Despite the guarantees provided by the Food Safety Inspection Body of Armenia, the detection of quarantine objects for the EAEU continues,” the agency reported.


Rosselkhoznadzor claims that during the import of 96.2 million units of flower products, 135 cases of infestation were detected. This, they say, accounts for 77% of the total detections for the entire year 2025.


Formally, this looks like restrictions due to purely technical reasons, but it has long been known that sanitary restrictions on imports from countries whose leadership or people have displeased the Kremlin are a standard practice of the Russian authorities. Rosselkhoznadzor’s discovery of something harmful in products almost always miraculously coincides with a general deterioration of interstate relations.


https://nashaniva.com/en/395696