Several high-ranking Armenian officials have warned that fake social media accounts have been created using their names and photographs. Separately, the Central Bank of Armenia has warned about fake documents circulated in its name.
Armenian high-ranking officials and civil society members have been targets of similar attacks previously, with the latest round being observed by late 2025 and early 2026.
Since Wednesday, such accounts have been created in the name of Parliamentary Speaker Ruben Rubinyan, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan, Education Minister Zhanna Andreasyan, Environment Minister Hambardzum Matevosyan, Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan, and Human Rights Defender Anahit Manasyan.
In announcements about the fake accounts, the officials and their spokespeople have urged people, employees and the partners of the institution to disregard messages sent from them, avoid sharing personal or official information, refrain from making transfers, and block and report the accounts.
The Central Bank of Armenia has also warned about fake documents circulated in its name and used by scammers.
The bank has published examples of fraudulent documents, noting an increase in cases in which fraudsters attempt to mislead citizens by presenting fake powers of attorney, certificates, or other documents as having been issued by the bank.
‘Using this method, fraudsters attempt to obtain loans from various financial organisations in citizens’ names or carry out other fraudulent transactions’, the Central Bank said.
Armenian authorities have yet to comment on the attacks.
Speaking to OC Media, Artur Papyan, co-founder of cybersecurity organisation CyberHub, said he did not believe it was a coincidence that a specific group of government officials were being targeted at the same time.
‘So, clearly, I view this in the border context of the [attempts to] erode public trust. People are beginning to question whether something posted by an official is genuine or false, whether it was actually posted by that person or not’, Papyan said.
He also pointed to an increase in similar attempts between October 2025 and the end of January 2026, when CyberHub had observed similar impersonation attempts across several platforms, particularly WhatsApp and Facebook, which remains the primary platform for the government internal or public communication.
Back then, they observed text messages that appeared to have been translated using Google Translate or AI, with Russian words left in some texts. However, Papyan cautioned that this was not enough to conclude that Russia was behind the attacks, as Russian is widely used across post-Soviet countries. At the same time, he suggests that those appeared to have been organised by people familiar with the Armenian context and could have formed part of a ‘hybrid attacks’ originating either from Azerbaijan or Russia.
‘The aim appeared to be to intimidate people and draw them into some kind of illegal activity, which looked very much like the formation of an espionage network’, Papyan said.
He said there was not enough information to identify those behind the latest incidents or determine their motives, adding that he was sceptical Meta would provide useful information if contacted.
‘Can we say that this latest incident resembles those previous attacks? Yes, in many respects, because the perpetrators seem to understand the local context, download profile pictures from user accounts, and so on. But going much further than speculation could be dangerous, at least in our case, because we’re trying to draw conclusions based on facts’, Papyan concluded.
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