Russia bans imports and sales of Armenian Jermuk mineral water

Economy14:59, 23 May 2026
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Russia’s consumer protection watchdog has banned the import and sale of Armenian Jermuk mineral water in the country.

According to a Rospotrebnadzor statement, excessive levels of bicarbonates, chlorine and sulfates were detected in the water.

“Misleading information regarding products with medicinal purposes may lead to ineffective treatment and deterioration of health,” the agency said in its statement.

The ban took effect immediately.

Earlier, at the end of April this year, Rospotrebnadzor had already prohibited the import and sale of a batch of Jermuk mineral water produced between October 23, 2025 and February 17, 2026. At the time, the agency also stated that excessive levels of bicarbonates, chlorine and sulfates had been identified in the mineral water.

On May 20, 2026, Rosselkhoznadzor also imposed restrictions on flowerimports from Armenia.

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Pashinyan rules out Russian gas price hike for Armenia

Economy09:35, 22 May 2026
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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has ruled out any increase in the price of Russian gas supplied to Armenia, citing an existing contract between the two countries.

“There cannot be an increase in the price of gas because we have a contract that is in effect and mutually beneficial. The contract contains specific terms, and we have reached clear strategic agreements regarding the gas price, and those agreements must be upheld,” the Prime Minister said at a press briefing when asked about the possibility of Russia raising the price of gas supplied to Armenia.

On May 21, media reports suggested that the price of Russian gas for Armenia could rise; however, shortly afterward, Armenia’s Public Services Regulatory Commission denied these claims.

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Pashinyan signed up for a disastrous scenario for Armenians — the leader of th

Eurasia Daily
May 21 2026
Pashinyan signed up for a disastrous scenario for Armenians — the leader of the Mother Armenia party

Armenia has been dragged into a disastrous geopolitical scenario for it, which includes new losses of territories, dismantling of strategic sectors of the economy and ousting Russia and Iran from the South Caucasus. This was announced today, May 21, at an urgent press conference by the second number of the electoral list of the Prosperous Armenia party, the leader of the Mother Armenia party Andranik Tevanyan, VERELQ reports.

He stressed that the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem and Western globalist circles put forward quite specific demands to Armenia, and the acting prime minister has already agreed to fulfill them. According to Tevanyan, one of the key requirements is the provision of the so-called “Zangezur Corridor”. In addition, he stated that there are plans to settle Azerbaijanis in Armenia and transfer at least three territories of sovereign Armenia located at strategically important road junctions to Azerbaijan.

The politician also stated that within the framework of this scenario, the closure of the Armenian nuclear power plant is envisaged, as well as the destruction of the country’s mining industry under the pretext of environmental programs. According to Tevanyan, such initiatives are presented as measures to protect the environment, but in fact they are aimed at weakening the Armenian economy.

Separately, he pointed to the requirements for the withdrawal of the Russian 102nd military base from Gyumri, Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO and the EAEU.

Tevanyan stressed that Armenia’s economic ties with the EAEU and especially with Russia are of critical importance for the country. According to him, the share of Armenian-Russian trade relations exceeds 30%, and the rupture of these ties will lead to the economic collapse of Armenia.

According to the politician, the ultimate goal of what is happening is the “Ukrainization” of Armenia so that the “Turkish world” gets a dominant position in the South Caucasus. He believes that within the framework of the geopolitical game, attempts are being made to oust Russia and Iran is from the region.

“It was under this monstrous plan that Nikol Pashinyan signed up,” Tevanyan said.

More details: 

Human Rights Watch: Detainee’s Death in Armenia Raises Serious Questions

Human Rights Watch
May 20 2026

Ensure Effective Investigation, Address Disability Rights Failures

The death of Armen Hovhannisyan by suicide on May 16, hours after Armenian police transferred him to a psychiatric institution, should prompt urgent scrutiny of how authorities respond to people in psychosocial distress.  

Police in Artashat, about 30 kilometers from Yerevan, detained Hovhannisyan after he allegedly tore down an election campaign poster. Authorities opened criminal proceedings for “obstructing or coercing participation in campaign activities.” According to official information, while Hovhannisyan was in a police detention facility on May 16, officers observed what they described as “mentally unbalanced behavior” and called an ambulance. He was subsequently transferred to a psychiatric institution in Yerevan, where authorities said he died by suicide later that day.

But the official account leaves critical questions unanswered. Authorities have not said why police considered detention was necessary, how long Hovhannisyan was in custody for, what conditions he was held in or if he had seen a doctor or a lawyer, what supports and safeguards were put in place to protect his rights, or the basis for transferring him to a psychiatric institution.

These gaps matter. Contact with the criminal justice system should not culminate in loss of life or involve punitive, coercive, or unsupportive mental health responses.

Authorities said they opened a criminal investigation into Hovhannisyan’s death. As part of it, they should determine if Hovhannisyan’s detention, treatment in custody, and any psychiatric intervention complied with international standards, including the prohibitions on arbitrary detention, deprivation of liberty on the basis of disability, and the requirement that treatment be based on free and informed consent.

The case also points to a broader problem. Armenia has long relied on institutional and punitive responses to people with psychosocial disabilities, while community-based mental health support, crisis-response services, and accessible legal assistance remain inadequate.

Armenia is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which requires authorities to respect legal capacity, provide reasonable accommodation, and ensure nondiscrimination for people with disabilities at all stages of criminal justice proceedings.

This points to the need for an investigation broader than a criminal one, one capable of addressing structural failures, including gaps in training, oversight, and accountability in law enforcement responses to people with psychosocial disabilities, as well as a lack of accessible, rights-based support outside of institutions. An effective investigation should identify not only what happened in this case but what needs to change to prevent similar deaths.

It is proposed to expand the fields of application of the electronic cash register

The purpose of the adoption of the project is to expand the fields of application of the electronic cash register and to provide the possibility of using it as an alternative to the conventional cash register. This was stated by Eduard Hakobyan, the chairman of the RA State Revenue Committee, at the session of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs of the RA NA on May 20.


The draft law “On making additions and amendments to the Tax Code of the Republic of Armenia” was discussed in the first reading.


According to Eduard Hakobyan’s presentation, along with the technological development and the growth of digital services, there is a need to expand the fields of application of the electronic cash register, to make it an alternative tool to the regular cash register, with which it will be possible to ensure the implementation of the same functions in the easiest and most modern ways.


In particular, it is proposed to unify all the provisions related to the cash register and the electronic cash register, which will be applicable to both instruments.


It is also proposed to establish an authorizing norm by which the Government will define the technical requirements of the electronic control cash register, the procedure for its registration and deregistration, and the rules of enforcement. The spheres of activity, cases and periods when the use of an electronic control cash register is mandatory by organizations, individual entrepreneurs and notaries during sales, performing works or providing services have also been clarified.


The main reporter answered the questions of the deputies, presenting clarifications regarding the regulations established by the draft law. A reference was made to the maintenance fee for cash registers.


The draft law received a positive conclusion.

168: Not to transform the army, but to revive it

May 202026

Unfortunately, there are no signs of deep dissatisfaction in the army against this situation.

Of course, in meetings with the middle and lower officers, they express terrible grievances, but the elite has somehow adapted to the agenda of the current government and is doing everything to serve it.

It is difficult to say who is prompting Nikol Pashinyan, but he is taking steps to make the elite of the army subservient to him.

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Details in the video




Strong Armenia members jailed over alleged disruption of Civil Contract campai

Law10:26, 18 May 2026
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Six suspects have been placed in pre-trial detention, and one has been placed under house arrest, for allegedly obstructing a campaign event of the Civil Contract Party in Lori Province.

The suspects are representatives of the Strong Armenia alliance, according to the Investigative Committee.

A total of 10 individuals were previously detained in connection with the incident. Authorities have requested that the suspects be remanded in custody; hearings for three individuals are still pending.

Supporters of the Strong Armenia alliance allegedly disrupted an election campaign event announced by the Civil Contract Party after learning its location in advance.

On May 16, they are said to have blocked a road with vehicles at the entrance to Norashen, obstructing campaign activities. On the same day in Metsavan, they reportedly played loud music and used violence against Civil Contract Party participants, further disrupting the event.

A criminal case was opened under Article 211(2)(5) for obstruction of campaigning committed by multiple individuals, and 10 people were detained.

At the time, the Civil Contract Party’s campaign in Lori Province was led by Defense Minister Suren Papikyan, who was officially on leave to campaign for the party.

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Verelq: Elections in Armenia. From state durability to credit

Photo: ИЗВЕСТИЯ/Zurab Javakhadze

Ahead of the parliamentary elections to be held on June 7, the political field of Armenia has turned into a platform for the clash of plans. While the ruling party promises to lay the foundations of an eternal state, abandoning short-term planning, the opposition proposes radical steps to rescue the debt-ridden population and renew dilapidated infrastructure.


The pre-election race, which started on May 8 and brought together 19 political forces (17 parties and 2 blocs), will continue until June 5. The ruling Civil Pact party, which runs under number 16 under the slogan “Stand Up for Peace,” submitted an extensive list of 283 main and 10-minority candidates to the CEC. Nikol Pashinyan, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, called the active participation of children in the campaign a “children’s revolution” at a meeting with citizens in the Davtashen administrative district.


According to him, the people and the Government are on the same pulse, and the country has finally overcome the logic of planning life only “after the New Year, after the holidays”. Pashinyan emphasized that the main task of the elections is to take Armenia on a hundred-year and thousand-year highway, providing the state with the status of a safe, developed and eternally existing republic.


The opposition proposes a completely different agenda, focusing on acute socio-economic problems. On May 17, representatives of the “Strong Armenia” bloc conducted a campaign in the city of Metsamor. Narek Karapetyan, a member of the Political Council, noted with regret that the energy heart of the country remained in the Soviet past. during twenty years, only small kiosks have been renovated here. The alliance claims that most of the taxes paid by the NPP should be returned to Metsamor for the active development of the city.


The issue of agriculture in the Ararat Valley is no less acute. we have 95 percent water loss due to old irrigation systems. Karapetyan sees the solution to the problem in the modernization of the Sevan-Hrazdan cascade. In addition, the alliance promises radical credit reforms.


Citing Georgia as an example, where the loan interest rate is 8%, compared to 15-24% in Armenia, the oppositionists proposed a new mechanism for the protection of debtors. if a person is unable to pay the loan for 18 months, the Enforcement Service will not freeze his accounts, and the principal amount of the loan will be repaid by the state at the expense of the citizen’s tax payments after he enters official employment.


The theme of social justice and financial amnesty was continued by the “Prosperous Armenia” party. Party leader during the large-scale march held in Erebuni administrative region Gagik Tsarukyan emphasized that their pre-election program was not written while sitting in the cabinets, but on the basis of the real issues raised during the meetings with the residents of the marzes.


Reminding that he comes from an ordinary worker’s family and was founded from scratch, Tsarukyan promised to make education and health care completely free. And for the population affected by co-epidemic, economic crisis and war, the main lifeline should be the complete forgiveness of problematic loans up to 3 million drams. The leader of the party assured the voters that he neither wants a position, nor recognition, nor does he have a personal issue to resolve. its sole purpose is to put a smile on people’s faces.

Onik Gasparyan, what a closed discussion, tell me openly, Ohanyan to you and Niko

May 162026

The campaign of Nikol Pashinyan and CP is completely built on hatred, division of society, falsehood and lies. Nikol Pashinyan is deceiving the public. And in general, his campaign, as if to have supporters in the places, is 95 percent staged. About this 168 TVof Revue said in an interview with the program political scientist Gagik Hambaryanspeaking on the subject of the pre-election campaign of the ruling and opposition forces.

The political scientist emphasizes that the #1 brand of Pashinyan’s campaign, the “peace” he preached, does not exist in reality.

“There is no one to ask what kind of peace we are talking about.” He likes to talk about having a “cadastre certificate” or not. He says: “Armenia does not have a cadastre certificate.” Now I ask a question: Did those who believe in Nikol’s peace ask you once, do you have the “birth certificate” of that peace? From ancient times to the present day, the end result of wars is resolved in one way – a peace treaty. Now the question is: do we have that contract?

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What kind of peace are we talking about? The problem is that Nikol is deceiving the public. He is deceiving people with the de facto existing peace, the number 1 beneficiary of which is the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem, because if the cease-fire that exists until now on the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line is not maintained by the Azerbaijanis, then the number 1 problem will be their beneficiary Nikol Anhol, and that is why they are currently maintaining that peace, but the problem is that the current processes in international relations and the diplomatic sphere show that even de jure concluded the agreements do not insure against new aggression or ambitions of any country,” commented Gagik Hambaryan.

Speaking about Azerbaijan’s obvious territorial ambitions towards Armenia, continuous demands, including Baku’s precondition to change the Constitution of Armenia, their plans to populate Armenia with Azerbaijanis, and the dangers arising from them, Gagik Hambaryan first emphasizes that Nikol Pashinyan, who made “peace” a brand, is now blackmailing the Armenian society, saying that “without me, there will be war”, and if he succeeded in re-establishing his power in Armenia, blackmail will follow. “If we don’t change the Constitution, there won’t be peace”, “If Azerbaijanis don’t come to live in Armenia, there won’t be peace”, and so on.

Gagik Hambaryan warns about impending dangers, noting that Azerbaijan will not be satisfied with so-called “enclaves”. He emphasizes the inadmissibility of Pashinyan’s attempts to equate the rights of the Artsakh Armenians with the somewhat foolish aspirations of the Azerbaijanis, noting that even if Azerbaijan returns the Armenian Artsvashen, the Armenians will not return to Artsvashen under these conditions, because the Azerbaijanis will do everything to make the lives of Armenians there hell.

In this context, the political scientist added that according to international reports, in 1988-89. Azerbaijanis who left Armenia do not have the right to be considered refugees, because most of them sold their property in Armenia and returned to Azerbaijan, and those who left the territory of Soviet Armenia at that time without selling their property received compensation from the budget of the Armenian SSR.

Describing the dangerous prospect of Azerbaijan’s ambitions to conquer Armenia with the methods of the 21st century – “dollar expansion”, methods of creeping conquest, Gagik Hambaryan emphasizes that the only way to prevent this is to not allow the reproduction of Nikol Pashinyan’s power.

«Nicole should not reproduce. That’s it. If Nikol remains in power, all the scenarios I mentioned regarding the Turks will take place in their entirety“, says the political scientist.

Gagik Hambaryan believes that Nikol Pashinyan is a classic “mankurt” in the words of the famous work of Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov. According to the political scientist, Nikol Pashinyan has no shame.

“Nicole is a classic mancourt. Put his speeches before 2020 and put his speeches after the 44 day war. he says completely, 180 degrees completely opposite things, and the problem is that the goal of his childishness is one thing: to keep the power at any cost, because these elections are a matter of life and death for him. He is not fighting a classic political struggle, he is fighting for his life because he knows very well that he has committed so many crimes against the Armenian people and the Republic of Armenia that under no circumstances can he live not only in Armenia, but also abroad, because he is afraid of the new Soghomon Tehlerians.

He himself caused as much harm to the Armenian people as Talaat, Enver, Jemal Pasha, and the crime is not only killing people. the most valuable thing in the world is land, and he, grossly violating the results of the war, gave 4-5 times more land to Azerbaijan than we lost during the war. That is the biggest betrayal. I have never seen such a thing in history, – says Gagik Hambaryan and adds, – This man has no shame. This person, like an orphan, with the booklets, approaches people, violating their personal space. Who allowed himself to film those people as well? No one allowed it. Violating human rights, he boldly tries to advance what he wants, which is abnormal. And as for his campaign in general, I should mention that 95 percent of it is completely staged.”

In connection with the topic of the 44-day war and the loss of Artsakh, Gagik Hambaryan also addresses the mystery of the capture of Shush by the Azeris, reminding that just a month ago, the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan from the podium of the National Assembly accused Nikol Pashinyan and Onik Gasparyan, the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces at that time, for the loss of Artsakh, and five and a half years after the war, we found out for the first time that those two, Nikol Pashinyan and Onik Gasparyan, were responsible for the defense of Artsakh in the southern direction.

“After the 44-day war, another general, Movses Hakobyan, made a very interesting discovery, announcing that after coming to power, Nikol Anhol reduced 5 regiments in that direction, which was an intention to weaken the defense line in that direction.

Movses Hakobyan also pointed out the top secret number: with the top secret order “00038” Nikol Anhogh reduced 5 regiments in that area. In my subjective opinion, he did it on purpose in order to make it easier for the Azerbaijanis to break through the defensive line in that direction, together with Onik Gasparyan.

Onik Gasparyan is so cowardly that he says, “Let’s have a closed discussion in the National Assembly.” Why a closed discussion, Onik Gasparyan? Please tell me clearly, Seyran Ohanyan openly accused you of treason together with Nikol Ankh. What closed discussion? Five and a half years have passed since the war, 2020-23. 5000 boys were killed during this period. By the way, have you noticed how this capitulator gets hysterical after learning the number of 5,000 victims,” ​​commented the political scientist.

In connection with the dispute over the number of victims on the Armenian side in the war, Gagik Hambaryan notes that in 2020-23 during the three wars, as well as in Artsakh in 2023. during the September Azerbaijani aggression, 4915 people were killed and missing due to the episodes of the gasoline warehouse explosion.

Full interview in the video.




Armenia’s Meghri transforms into global hub amid TRIPP connectivity plans, sa

Politics13:35, 16 May 2026
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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that the Armenian town of Meghri in the country’s south has transformed into a “regional and global hub” since the agreements on launching the TRIPP project.

“There was a time when just mentioning Meghri would trigger waves of alarm,” Pashinyan said at a campaign event in Yerevan for his Civil Contract party. “But today, Meghri has transformed into a regional, global hub. Today, the world’s top leaders believe that a turning-point event is taking place in Meghri. World leaders communicate with me, asking how they can participate, because they understand that something is happening that has key significance and that it will be of decisive importance for North–South and East–West communications,” Pashinyan said.

He emphasized that the perception of the country’s geographical position has also changed.

“Armenia remains on the same coordinates it has been on for the past hundred years, but our perception has always been that the country’s geographic position is extremely unfavorable. However, the Armenia–EU summit is taking place—the first in history—and the President of the European Commission begins our meeting with the following sentence: Armenia sits on the shortest East–West route,” said Pashinyan, referring to the inaugural Armenia–EU summit, which took place in Yerevan earlier this month.

He said that real estate prices in Meghri have increased by around 50 percent, while in the border village of Kirants in the Tavush region, where delimitation and demarcation have taken place, around 50 new houses are currently being built.

“Today’s Kirants and the Kirants of 2023 are kilometers apart. Kirants is safer and more developed than ever before. There used to be around 100 houses in Kirants; today, around 50 houses are under construction there. In more than 3,400 border communities, houses and new neighborhoods are being built. In various settlements, new districts are emerging with state support,” said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) is a connectivity project in Armenia envisaged under the U.S.-brokered Armenian–Azerbaijani joint declaration signed in Washington, D.C. The project is expected to unlock strategic economic opportunities, create long-term benefits by promoting infrastructure investment, and enhance regional connectivity.

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