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The pro-Kremlin bot network “Matryoshka” has targeted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. He is being criticized for what bots call “the highest level of corruption in the Middle East” and for allegedly covering up the Armenian genocide. Some bots even claim he is taking “strong tranquilizers.” As the investigator behind the troll-tracking Bot Blocker Project told The Insider, this is the first time Matryoshka has turned its attention on the Armenian prime minister.
The Matryoshka bots have been posting criticism of Pashinyan since June 12. Videos attacking his government have appeared on X and TikTok. Some of them are disguised as reports from major media outlets like Euronews or France 24, while others mimic interviews with university professors from around the world.
Most of the videos reviewed by The Insider focus on the alleged cover-up of the 1915–1923 Armenian genocide by the country’s current leadership. In one such video, Josh Kurek, a professor at Canada’s Mount Allison University, is shown supposedly saying he was shocked by stories from his Armenian students about the history of the genocide being silenced: “For the last seven years, official information sources in Armenia have hardly spoken about the Armenian genocide as one of the most tragic and significant events of the early 20th century,” Kurek says in a voiceover.
In reality, the disinformation network used only the first five seconds of the original video from the university’s social media – the part in which the professor introduces himself. In the original video, published in October 2024, Kurek talks about the concept of a watershed in ecology.
A claim that Armenian authorities downplay the early 20th-century genocide would not be entirely false. In January and March, Pashinyan did make a series of statements that drew sharp criticism. In particular, he asked: “How did it happen that in 1939 there was no Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day agenda, and how did it happen that such an agenda appeared in 1950? How did that come about?”
The prime minister continued: “We need to reconsider the history of the Armenian genocide. We need to understand what happened, why it happened, and who shaped our perception of these events.”
However, in April 2025, Pashinyan joined the country’s president on a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to mark the 110th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
Other videos are disguised as clips from the social media accounts of major foreign media outlets. Among them are Euronews, France 24, the Turkish outlet Yeni Şafak, and the Armenian online outlet tert.am.
One of these videos, attributed to Euronews, claims that Armenia is the most corrupt country in the Middle East. However, according to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Yerevan has one of the best scores among neighboring countries: 47 out of 100. True, Georgia scores higher (53), but neighboring Turkey (34) and Azerbaijan (22) lag significantly behind Armenia.
A video disguised as content from the Turkish media outlet Yeni Şafak even claims that Pashinyan takes “strong tranquilizers.” American neurobiologist Nancy Andreasen allegedly reported this, but no such information appears in public sources.
The author of the Bot Blocker Project told The Insider that the Matryoshka network was targeting Nikol Pashinyan for the first time. One possible trigger for the information attack could be the Armenian prime minister’s visit to Ankara, scheduled for June 20. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that some of the videos are disguised as Turkish media content.
Alternatively, however, the conflict between Pashinyan and his domestic opposition — some of whom are calling for his impeachment — could have provoked the bots. Additionally, a new phase began in the dispute between the prime minister and the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, whom Pashinyan accused of breaking his vow of celibacy. The opposition sided with the head of the church and accused Pashinyan of inappropriate behavior and spreading rumors. The Insider covered this story in more detail previously.
The Insider has at its disposal links to the original tweets, as well as evidence provided by the Bot Blocker Project proving that the accounts posting them belong to the Matryoshka network. The Insider does not provide direct links to the disinformation content in order to avoid its further dissemination.