Armenia is Russia’s latest fake news target. A story on popular Russian portal Gazeta.ru, headlined “Keepsake photo: why Pashinyan is following Porosheko’s example”. There’s also a story on popular Russian portal Gazeta.ru, with the same headline.
Both are analytical essays describing Armenia’s newly elected Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as a unfaithful ally of Moscow. And both media outlets are owned by the same media group.
As reported by Eurasianet online, the two articles have been seen in Yerevan as a black PR campaign and a not-very-veiled threat from the Kremlin to quit flirting with the West.
Both articles belaboured a comparison between Armenia and Ukraine. And both texts profile Armenia’s most Western-oriented members of Pashinyan’s new team. For instance, Culture Minister Lilit Makunts worked, until recently, for the US Peace Corps, which, according to reports, “is well known to be connected to the CIA”.
According to Armenian political commentator, Sargis Artsruni, the institutional reforms now underway in Armenia “further integrates the country in the so-called Western system”.
“Even if today this doesn’t have what you would call a civilizational direction, in the future it will become a practical policy,” wrote Artsruni. “This is the reason for the deep Russian hysteria.”
