Russian foreign ministry responds to the insider investigation on 'kremlin agents' in armenia
The Russian Foreign Ministry has responded to an investigative article published May 19 by The Insider under the headline "Grab the 'Beard.' What FSB, GRU, and SVR Agents Have Been Sent to Armenia to Fight Pashinyan."
"The arguments presented in the 'investigation' are nothing but blatant lies and an organized provocation aimed at exerting psychological pressure on Russian diplomats and intimidating the Armenian public ahead of the elections," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a post published on its page in the social network Facebook, which is banned in Russia itself.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Insider material contains numerous factual errors, inaccurate details about the diplomats' biographies, and is not supported by convincing facts; the evidence consists of unreliable screenshots, extracts, and undocumented stories citing anonymous sources and "biased" foreign media.
The Russian Foreign Ministry insists that the accusations against the Russian House in Yerevan are unfounded, since its educational work is "absolutely routine diplomatic activity" that the authors of the material at The Insider deliberately present in the spirit of the "Kremlin's hand."
Moscow also expressed concern over attempts to impose on Armenian society the scheme "criticism of the government = agent of Moscow," under which any contacts between the local opposition and Russia are declared to be work under the supervision of the special services. At the same time, the ministry placed responsibility for the publication on certain "Brussels propagandists" who are allegedly trying to implement a "Moldovan scenario" in the republic to clean up the information field. In conclusion, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that it views the material as part of a large-scale campaign to "push Russia out of the South Caucasus" and impose external orientations on Yerevan.
It should be noted that The Insider article "Grab the 'Beard.' What FSB, GRU, and SVR Agents Have Been Sent to Armenia to Fight Pashinyan" states that after failures in Moldova and Hungary, the Kremlin has thrown all its resources at Armenia, where parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 7, hoping to prevent a victory by the Civil Contract party of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has taken a course toward rapprochement with the EU and the United States.
To implement this plan, Moscow has deployed curators from the Presidential Administration, the Foreign Ministry, and career intelligence officers. The information campaign is coordinated by the Presidential Directorate for Strategic Partnership and Cooperation, headed by Vadim Titov, while the direct curators are "special services representatives" Valery Chernyshov, who taught sabotage work at GRU officer advanced training courses, and his deputy, Colonel Dmitry Avanesov. On the Foreign Ministry side, the process is overseen by the head of the Fourth CIS Countries Department, Mikhail Kalugin, whom Lithuanian special services had previously suspected of working for Russian intelligence. Promotion of "soft power" is handled by Rossotrudnichestvo, headed by Igor Chaika, and under the auspices of its subordinate Russian House in Yerevan, events are held where "participants are shown films about the 'revival of Nazism in Ukraine.'" According to the publication, the official trade representative of the Russian Federation, Alexey Myshlyavkin, is in fact "the SVR resident in Armenia," and "through his numerous agents Myshlyavkin knows about every step of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan."
In Moscow, Pashinyan was given the operational pseudonym "Beard" and an intensive effort to collect compromising material began, while an operational group has been deployed in Armenia along FSB lines, including officers Andrey Kivachuk, Roman Kucheryuk, and Sergey Gladyshchuk, The Insider writes. The publication notes that Russian structures are actively supporting the Armenian opposition, betting on loyal candidates. Among the key figures is the leader of the Strong Armenia party, Samvel Karapetyan. The investigation cites the fact that when the politician "was issued a foreign passport in 1999 in Kaluga, the 'place of work' field listed 'IC (Information Center) FSB,'" while the journalists note that "this is usually how foreigners working under FSB control or secret informants are marked."
Another Kremlin favorite is named as the leader of the Prosperous Armenia party, Gagik Tsarukyan. The Insider points to his criminal past, noting that in 1979 he was convicted of robbery and group rape, and publishes archival documents from the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, including "a financial estimate for his 2017 election campaign," confirming that "money went to Yerevan from a special fund on Staraya Square."
