Ucom Issues Warning on New Wave of Phone Scams

Armenia15:51, 17 March 2026
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Ucom press release 

Ucom informs that there has been an increase in phone scams in Armenia. Fraudsters are making calls fromlocal and international phone numbers, as well as sending messages via WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber.

By representing themselves as employees of banks, telecommunications operators, delivery services, or government agencies, they attempt to gain access to citizens’ personal data and mobile applications in order to later steal financial resources.

Scammers often instruct individuals to share or dictate service activation codes received via SMS, click on links sent through text messages and enter their bank card or personal information, as well as install specific applications on their phones, for example under the pretext of activating 5G services or accessing certain services for free.

If such actions are carried out, fraudsters may steal financial resources, gain access to banking applications and perform various transactions, send messages to the victim’s contacts, access personal communications, or remotely control the phone. These scams are often executed very quickly, within just a few minutes.

Ucom once again urges its subscribers never to share personal data, passwords, or banking codes over the phone, not to answer calls from unknown numbers, especially international ones, not to click on links in suspicious SMS messages, and to immediately end the call if the caller asks for personal information, requests opening links, or urges taking any action.

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IDBank issued the 2nd and 3rd tranches of bonds of 2026

Finances16:49, 17 March 2026
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IDBank press release 

On March 17, 2026, IDBank placed registered coupon bonds through a public offering on the following terms:

 2nd tranche, 2026 AMANLBBM5ER9

·  Total volume – 2 billion 500 million drams

·  Annual interest rate – 10%

·  Bond maturity – 36 months (3 years)

·  Bond payment – 3 months

·  Start of issue/placement – March 17, 2026

·  End of placement – May 11, 2026

·  Maturity date – March 17, 2029

 3rd tranche, 2026 AMANLBBM6ER7

·  Total volume – 5 million dollars

·  Annual interest rate – 5%

·  Bond maturity – 36 months (3 years)

·  Bond payment – 6 months

·  Start of issue/placement – March 17, 2026

·  End of placement – August 10, 2026

·  Maturity date – March 17, 2029

The second tranche of the bonds will be placed from March 17 to May 11, 2026 (inclusive), and the third tranche from March 17 to August 10, 2026 (inclusive).

After the placement, the bonds will be listed in the “Armenian Stock Exchange” OJSC. The bonds will be quoted through the Marketmaker.

The full information about the bonds will be available on the Idram&IDBank application immediately after the purchase: the “Bonds” section of the “Banking Services” section provides abbreviation, quantity, face value, annual coupon yield, coupon payment date and maturity date of the bonds.

You can see all the information about the bonds by following the link.

The Bond prospectus was registered by the CBA, resolution N1/407А of the Chairman of the CBA from November 12, 2025. The electronic version of the prospectus and the final terms of issue are available on the official website of the Bank.

THE BANK IS SUPERVISED BY CBA

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Raffi Hovhannisyan is going to the elections

“Heritage” party will take part in the June parliamentary elections. Raffi Hovhannisyan, the chairman of the party, announced this.


He noted that it is not worth burdening the field with separate participations, especially since he does not suffer from the burden of being a candidate for the prime minister. But at the moment there is no clarification as to which force the “Heritage” party will join.

Railway to “Zvartnots” airport. discussions have begun

Armen Simonyan, Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures of the Republic of Armenia, received Alessandro Ferranti, the Ambassador of the Republic of Italy to the Republic of Armenia. This is reported by TKEN.


The deputy minister welcomed the guests, highlighting the close partnership relations formed between the two countries in air transportation, land transportation with bilateral permits and other areas.


During the meeting, the parties also referred to the plan to create a railway infrastructure to “Zvartnots” airport, considering possible cooperation with Italian companies.


The ambassador emphasized that the direct air connection between Armenia and Italy stimulates the flow of tourists, which is increasing year by year, which, in turn, arouses interest among Italian companies to be involved in infrastructure development projects implemented in Armenia.


At the end of the meeting, the parties agreed to continue discussions on sectoral issues.

It’s funny that those funded by the US or the EU criticize Samvel Karap

The funny thing is that people who obviously receive funding from the government funds of the United States or the European Union, individual EU countries, present the fact that Samvel Karapetyan has a business in Russia as a threat to “sovereignty”.


This is also one of those categories where it could be a joke, but it is actually sad because it is consumed in certain public circles.


In this matter too, there is a lot of work to be done in order to increase the resilience of our society. Great and fundamental work. This is what will give Armenia the greatest capacity for sovereignty.


Analyst Hakob Badalyan




A new batch of diesel fuel was sent from Azerbaijan to Armenia

A batch of diesel fuel with a volume of about 4.5 thousand tons from Azerbaijan is going to Armenia, Gegham Gevorgyan, the chairman of the RA Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, told the “ARKA” agency on Monday.


“He should have arrived already. I cannot say exactly where the cargo is now, but it is definitely on the way,” said Gevorgyan.


On February 25, 2026, Azerbaijan sent a shipment of about 4.5 thousand tons of diesel fuel to Armenia through the territory of Georgia. It was reported that a train consisting of 39 tank cars left Guzdek station in the direction of the Georgian border.

New regulations on compulsory pre-school education for 5-6 year old children

The proposed regulations will make it possible to ensure the implementation of compulsory preschool education for 5-6 year old children. In particular, it refers to changes in two directions. the first is the unification of the certification process. A certificate is required for the management of institutions in the fields of preschool, general education and professional education. Corresponding changes have been made, which define in a unified manner the requirements for a person to apply for certification, as well as the cases of termination of certification and general approaches.


This was stated by RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan, presenting the legislative package for amendments and additions to the laws “On Preschool Education”, “On Public Education” and “On Vocational Education and Training” at the session of the NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sports.


According to the minister, it is suggested to revise the certification requirements in the laws of the fields of preschool, general education and professional education and refer to the article 40.1 of the RA Law “On Education”, which defines the unified standards. The reporter noted that this will make it possible to conduct a unified policy and bring the certification examination procedures closer to each other in the future.


The next amendment envisaged by the legislative package refers to the law “On Preschool Education”, by which it is proposed to reduce the age limit of preschool to 4 years. Zhanna Andreasyan noted that two age limits are proposed. in general, a preschool is established for children aged 4-6, and in those settlements where there is only preschool service, it is possible to ensure the activities of preschools for 3-6 year olds.


The regulation will make it possible to expand the enrollment of preschool children and ensure the implementation of compulsory preschool education for 5-6 year old children, according to the strategic goals of the Government.


The issue was discussed in the first reading at the meeting of the commission on March 17 and received a positive conclusion.


The discussion of the second reading of the draft law providing for amendments and additions to the law “On Audiovisual Media” has been postponed for a period of up to two months.

Alisa Gevorgyan won. another one of the Director of Public Radio was invalidated

Lawyer Karine Gghshangyan writes on her Facebook page:


“Another illegal decision of the Director of Public Radio was invalidated


The decision of Public Radio Director Armen Koloyan to severely reprimand Alisa Gevorgyan, senior journalist of the Radiolur program, was invalidated by the decision of the Civil Court of First Instance of Yerevan City No. ED2/4514/02/25 (presiding judge: A. Petrosyan). According to the court’s assessment, the decision (Decision 52-L of the Public Broadcaster Council of 2019) and the annex, which was the legal basis for the decision, have lost their legal force since 2020, as a result of the repeal of the RA Law “On Television and Radio”, as well as the legal basis specified in the disputed order and the applied disciplinary penalty do not correspond to each other.


Let me remind you that a disciplinary penalty was applied to Alisa Gevorgyan, a severe reprimand, for sharing Hovhannes Ishkhanyan’s post on the Facebook platform. Another disciplinary penalty was applied to Alisa, a reprimand, for sharing Aram Abrahamyan’s post, which was also declared invalid by the court’s decision,” he wrote.

Any problems with previous investments in public administration

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in the 3rd Public Sector Innovation Forum, which was organized by the Sustainable Development Goals Innovation Center of Armenia of the United Nations Development Program.


Members of the Government, diplomats, representatives of international organizations, local and international experts, representatives of civil society, leaders of innovation and technology were also present at the event.


Before the start of the event, Nikol Pashinyan familiarized himself with the solutions of the technological sphere of the public administration field equipped with artificial intelligence at the COPA booth. It was presented that ParlOur is an open source tool developed by COPA, collecting on one platform the speeches of RA National Assembly deputies, legislative initiatives, committee meetings, votes and other parliamentary content. It allows citizens to understand which MP expressed what position, what initiatives he took and how he voted on various issues through a thematic search. The tool was created to make parliamentary processes more transparent, accessible and analyzable. It is aimed at strengthening the informed participation of citizens and informed public control over political decisions.


Before the award ceremony, the Prime Minister made a speech, welcomed everyone to the third Public Sector Innovation Conference and noted: “First of all, I think it makes sense to record that the quality of work in the public sector very directly means the quality of public life. Perhaps the impression is that this interdependence is not always and not everywhere perceived. in order for us to make the life of the public better, we have to make the management of the public sector better, and in order to make the management of the public sector better, in general, there is a tool to make something better – it is additional investments in that sector.”


According to Nikol Pashinyan, in reality there is another problem of improving the public sphere: the public sphere is somewhat demonized at least on a subconscious and emotional level. “This is related to our historical experience, because what has our several hundred years of historical experience shown? we are dealing with a public sphere that is repressive, destructive, inhibiting, and disruptive. Such has been our historical experience for the past 500 years, with some exceptions. This perception persists in our reality, while the reality is that the public sphere is the rail on which the train of our public life runs. We can make the biggest possible investments on the train, gild the seats and carriages of that train, but if proper investments are not made on the rails, that train will either simply not move or will crash very often, which in our reality, let’s admit, happens very often,” said the head of the country.


According to the Prime Minister, it is important to record that no citizen of the Republic of Armenia has and cannot have as much influence on his personal well-being as the sphere of public administration has on that citizen’s well-being. And therefore, changing the public attitude towards the sphere of public administration is one of the most important things to do. “I want to emphasize once again that no, absolutely no, family in the Republic of Armenia spends on its own well-being and cannot spend as much as the state budget and community budget of the Republic of Armenia spends on the well-being of that same family. It is excluded, there is no such unique example in the Republic of Armenia. In the Republic, we don’t have a single family, a single individual who spends more for his personal well-being than the state budget of the Republic of Armenia spends for that same person’s personal well-being. Every dram of tax paid by every citizen of the Republic of Armenia is returned ten times more to that citizen. Moreover, this is an exact formula. if a citizen pays 1 dram, he gets 10 drams back, if a citizen pays 10 drams, he gets 100 drams back, if a citizen pays 100 drams, he gets 1000 drams back,” Nikol Pashinyan emphasized.


Referring to the innovation of the public sector, the Prime Minister noted that innovation is education, because without education it is not possible to innovate. According to the head of the country, this is the reason why the Government’s policy for at least the last 1-1.5 years is aimed at making large investments in the field of public administration, introducing self-employed education systems. “We make sure that education in the public sector becomes a motivation, and as a result of education, new motivations for work and innovation, new knowledge are acquired. Today, we have a situation where thousands of civil servants are focusing on their education thanks to these investments and the program. After work, they participate in various educational programs and trainings to improve their qualifications and the quality of their work. It is done, first of all, to improve the lives of citizens of the Republic of Armenia and people living in Armenia. Any problems and any unsolved problems that we see today are the result of our previous investments in the field of public administration.


Summarizing the speech, Nikol Pashinyan thanked the organizers of the forum and all the public sector workers who are engaged in their education, continuous improvement of their professional level, promote so that the public sector workers have additional motivation to increase their professional level. “Thank you to those who turn what they know into a public product by innovating in the public sphere.”


Next, the award ceremony took place. The four award categories are: “Innovation Driven by Digital Solutions”, “Innovation Driven by Technology Solutions”, “People-Centred Innovation”, and “Innovation in Management”. The purpose of the Public Sector Innovators Awards is to highlight innovation, recognize and value those people and teams that, through their daily work, improve the quality of public policies and services, as well as strengthen Armenia’s commitment to modern, mission-oriented and people-centered governance.


Nikol Pashinyan handed over the prizes to the winners in the above categories. Thus, in the category “Innovation stimulated by digital solutions” the winners were Anna Harutyunyan, advisor to the minister coordinating the digitization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Arpine Sargsyan, the minister of internal affairs, “Innovation stimulated by technological solutions” – the head of the subsoil control department of the Environmental Protection and Subsoil Inspection Vahan Grigoryan and the head of the Environmental Protection and Subsoil Inspection Body Hovhannes Martirosyan, in the nomination “Human-centered innovation” – Education, Science, Culture and National Educational Technology under the Ministry of Sports Raisa Avetyan, head of the distance learning organization department of the center, and Zhanna Andreasyan, Minister of Education and Culture, in the “Management Innovation” nomination: Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Arayik Yesayan, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Arsen Torosyan.

Northern Europe-Baltic countries cooperation format MFA presentation

On March 17, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Ruben Rubinyan, received the directors of the Eastern European Departments of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Northern Europe-Baltic Eight cooperation format and ambassadors accredited to Armenia.


Welcoming the guests, Ruben Rubinyan emphasized cooperation with the Nordic-Baltic countries.


Issues related to regional developments were discussed.


The guests were also interested in the process of regulating Armenia-Turkey relations.