On June 7, Armenia is set to hold its parliamentary elections, which have become a proxy contest between Washington and Moscow, with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at the center.
The current Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has spent six years dismantling Armenia's alignment with Russia, but Putin's regime has been running a covert operation to ensure he loses.
A new Kremlin department, the Directorate for Strategic Cooperation and Partnership, is overseeing the influence operation in Armenia, with the operational contractor being the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Kremlin-funded organisation.
The SDA has been sanctioned by the EU and Britain for spreading disinformation to undermine support for Ukraine and has been tasked with creating a media outlet called Yerevan1 to target Russia's Armenian diaspora.
A separate Russian-backed online campaign has falsely alleged a corrupt land deal involving Pashinyan and two US senators, and a Kremlin-affiliated bot network has been involved in efforts to interfere with recent US elections.
The most logistically audacious element of the alleged operation involves physically transporting tens of thousands of Russia-based Armenians into the country to vote against Pashinyan, with Russian authorities calculating a cost of approximately $50 million to move 100,000 voters.
Moscow's preferred candidate is Samvel Karapetyan, a billionaire currently on trial in Armenia for allegedly calling for the overthrow of the government.
Russia has applied pressure through official channels, warning Armenia it risked losing access to cheap natural gas and restricting imports of Armenian fruit, vegetables, flowers, and brandy.
