Special committee on the European Democracy Shield Ordinary meeting
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Ihren Sitzungen folgenRedner 3
In 2024, it expanded and began targeting the US elections, with false narratives designed to undermine Kamala Harris and other Democrats and favor Trump. The same year, the campaign began publishing narratives designed to undermine Ukraine's allies, France, and Germany. And the following year, in 2025, we saw the campaign spread still further, targeting Moldova's September parliamentary elections with false claims apparently designed to undermine Maya Sandu and her party. We also saw that the campaign began to target Armenia in 2023, publishing a total of 21 false claims. And so far this year, the campaign has published four false claims about Armenia.
Next slide, please. So, as I say, Storm 15-16 has targeted other elections, but the difference here is that with Armenia, the campaign began long before the election was due to be held. So while previous campaigns by Storm have targeted elections in Moldova and Germany, those campaigns began just a few months before the election in each case. Whereas with Armenia, this campaign began a full year before the election was due to be held. So, it's quite clear to us from the volume of narratives, the resources being invested in this campaign, and how early it started, that Armenia is a very important battleground for Russia.
Next slide, please. So, in total, so far, we've seen about 25 false claims targeting Armenia from this campaign. Those claims have reached 56,000,000 views just on X. They've spread in about 16,000 different social media posts across 11 different platforms in 8 languages. The false claims often target particular themes, so they accuse Passionin's government of corruption and illegal activity.
They often accuse Pashinyan and his wife of spending government money on lavish purchases abroad, of doing illegal or immoral activities, or of allowing Western companies to conduct illegal activity in Armenia. Next slide, please. So these false narratives are very much designed to target the most important issues and push the hottest buttons for Armenians. These are issues that have been identified as public concerns in opinion polling. So that includes concerns around corruption and wealth, concerns around Armenia's national sovereignty and the country's shift towards Europe and the West, and issues around religion and traditional values.
And there have also been several false narratives accusing Armenian politicians of sexual crimes. So these are all kind of more controversial issues which the campaign appears to believe will be the most effective in targeting. Next slide, please. So, just to zoom in and focus on one particular campaign that we saw last year. So, in June 2025, storm 15-16 unleashed a false claim that a French nuclear company had bribed Pashinyan €1,600,000 in order to store its nuclear waste in an Armenian national park.
So this campaign began in an article on a brand-new website, which was masquerading as a French local news outlet. But this is a French local news outlet that actually doesn't exist. It only began to exist two days before it published the false claim. That article was credited to a real French freelance journalist, but the journalist told NewsGuard that he never wrote it. And from there, that claim was amplified on social media in a video bearing the logo of this supposed news outlet, and the video was modeled as if it were a real news report.
The next day, the claim was further amplified by a website, which was also newly created and emulated an Armenian environmental NGO called Green Armenia. And from there, it spread on social media and on various news sites, including US and French conservative news sites, Armenian and Azerbaijani websites, and it was even advanced as true by two science-focused websites, which NewsGuard has rated as credible sources. So, those websites actually had to retract their articles once they realized that the information was false. Next slide, please. Thanks.
So the claim didn't actually stop there. So, we tested 10 of the top AI chatbots with this claim to see how they would react when asked about it, and we found that 5 of the top 10 chatbots actually repeated the claim as false. So, it appears that these chatbots, in their efforts to scrape the Internet for information, absorbed articles advancing this claim and were unable to distinguish them as non-credible sources. So, we found that different chatbots, including Meta's AI, Perplexity, Copilot, and Mistrasler Chat, all presented this claim as fact when asked about it. And that's despite the fact that there were government refutations and some fact-checking articles refuting the claim available online as well.
And this is a pattern that we have seen repeated again and again with Storm 15 and 16 claims, where chatbots are unable to distinguish between truth and fiction, and between credible and non-credible sources. So I'm going to hand it back to the floor and would be happy to hear any questions. Thank you.
Thank you.
Redner 6
Thank you very much. I'm now going to give the floor to Olivier Bailly. You have 5 minutes. Yes. Good morning.
Redner 5
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for inviting me.
Maybe to tremble, but I will try to remain within the five minutes you gave me. So, we have some slides to display as well, if that would be possible. Just four slides. Thank you so much. We can move immediately to the next one.
Since Yerevan started a gradual reorientation towards the EU, Russia has intensified its coercive posture towards Armenia. And FIMI is one of the well-known tools that the Kremlin uses in its global aggressive influence strategy, and Armenia, of course, is not spared. The EES observed over the last year four different stages, translating to a Russian ramp-up leading to the current situation. You can move, maybe, to the next slide that describes, indeed, on the left-hand side, the different steps that I'm going to describe now. The first step was in March 2025, so one year ago, when Armenia adopted its EU integration law, triggering an immediate reaction from Russia with dedicated FIMI activity targeting Armenia's ruling class, plus the prime minister Tashinen, with allegations of corruption depicting the administration as weak and incompetent.
That was extremely precise and targeted. In summer 2025, the Russia Fimi operation against Armenia expanded in two aspects: the narrative and the infrastructure. In the narrative, Russia began to systematically add the EU SIM in their operation and merge it with the ongoing Fumi against Prime Minister Pershingyan and the Armenian institution. On the second aspect, infrastructure, Russia created dedicated local fake news outlets to expand its potential reach. The third phase, the post-election organized in Moldova in October, saw Russia's FIMI network, formerly active in Moldova, mark a strong pivot and shift of efforts towards Armenia.
And the last phase that we still see today started in December. Last year, a transition towards the upcoming election started, coinciding with the sixth EU-Armenia Partnership Council and the adoption of a new strategic agenda. Fimi content during this period, fake articles, AI videos, impersonation, etc., depicted the EU as interfering in the national affairs of sovereign countries, exacerbating local grievances, and war monitoring. The Russia Fumi playbook on election, more on the right-hand side of this slide, is made of different components. The first one is that Russia targets the local leadership personally.
Corruption, deprivation, all the terms, all the things that could cast a moral doubt or political weakness on the local leadership are used, and they are portrayed as Western and EU puppets. Second angle: Russia expands targeting to the broader administration and questions the integrity of the ruling class itself. Third, Russia targets the democratic process itself in order to set the ground for future denial of the result of this election to be held overnight on June 7. So with these three aspects, I think we see that the rule of law, the principles, and the institutions of the state of Armenia are targeted. The EU supports information and integrity in Armenia.
We can maybe move to the next slide. Thank you. We have decided to organize it in two parts that will, of course, be fully complementary. The first one is: what can we do within the EU? DEA has created a cross-institution coordination cell with the Commission and Council to coordinate, synchronize, and rationalize all StratCom activities planned for the election, high-level visits, communication plans, training, and exercises.
Friday, we will be 100 days ahead of the election, and it's important that with this very tight timeline we have ahead of us, we synchronize and streamline all our activities. We cannot be divided and lose the possibility to have a stronger impact. The sale is also meant to integrate all monitoring activities and build a joint face assessment to circulate valuable insights to all actors involved. And the AS finally also engaged with member states to expand this support. Next to this support and work within the EU, of course, the second phase is what we do directly with Armenia. The EU support is designed and coordinated directly with the Armenian administration to match their concrete needs and expectations, and this is a really fundamental point in our narrative.
And it responds exactly to the fumes from Russia. For example, the AS organized earlier this month, on the fifth of February, the Armenia Information Resilience Conference. So, we support them when they ask. A dedicated capacity-building package is currently implemented through dedicated exercises and training, sharing best practices on FIMI methodology, and how to detect, analyze, and react. And the support for member states, a war game in Warsaw, for example, will be organized by the Polish MFA in a couple of weeks.
The EU ensured transparent and data-driven communication on the EU and Armenia partnership to counter potential disinformation about the initiative. And finally, all this is to enhance the Armenian capacity to face the threat. This support is not about narrative control. It is about equipping Armenia with the toolkit to face any type of information manipulation in the future, according to the needs they have identified. I stop here.
Redner 2
Thank you very much to both of our guests. I'm now going to give the floor to my colleagues who would like to ask questions. And I myself am going to ask the first question for Mister Bailly. And there are really two questions. The first is this.
Has the European Union built on its experience with Moldova in the way that it's helping Armenia? You and NewsGuard have described a situation where Russia has intervened and interfered on a massive scale. And my second question might be for Mrs. Maitland too. Above and beyond the use of social networks and what Russia and other actors are doing everywhere. Is there anything specific about Armenia?
I'm thinking particularly about the Armenian Church. There has been tension. There have been arrests and accusations on both sides. Now, we saw what happened in Ukraine with the Orthodox Church. So I'd like to ask about the Armenian Church and whether Russia is using it for interference too.
I'm now going to give the floor to my colleagues. We'll start with the EPP, Mr. Olovichevich.
Redner 11
Much. I would like to ask, especially both of you, about the engagement of civil society in the control of the elections. Is the process somehow organized? Are they prepared to control the elections? And because when we are talking about the coordination of our activities here in the European institutions and all of the activities inside Armenia, we are thinking about what can be done from our side and how we can be helpful in the process of preparation for the elections.
Thank you.
Redner 8
Thank you. Thank you for the presentations. Very interesting information, so to speak. I have a question for both of the experts, and it's mainly related to the way Russia is using the Orthodox Church in Armenia to conduct these kinds of operations. You were mentioning that 26% of the falsehood themes in Armenia are related to religious aspects.
Redner 9
Can you dive a little bit deeper into these themes? What exactly are they, and how are they using these themes? Are they just talking about religion in general, or are there certain narratives specific to religious or faith issues? I'm wondering if you have any data on that. I also have to add the fact that in 2014, Russia changed its military doctrine to include the so-called defense of traditional values. And in 2015, they changed their national security strategy to include that as well.
Redner 8
So, we've seen in the past ten years or so, pretty much the militarization of the Russian Orthodox Church. And I was wondering if you have any more information on that issue because we see what is happening in Ukraine right now and in Moldova, as it was mentioned. The Russian Orthodox Church played a very important role in Moldova to try to manipulate the elections there. So, I'm wondering what more information you have about Russia's involvement in Armenia using the Orthodox Church. Thank you.
Redner 10
And gentlemen, I think it's very justified that you mentioned that we have a problem with external interference in Armenia, but it is not only Russia. We have another big player in the region that is hostile to what is happening now in Armenia, and I'm talking about Iran. Have you noticed any interference or false news being propagated by Iran? Because you have focused only on Russia. You've also mentioned that Russia is attacking everything related to the European Union.
And I'm thinking my question is: is the attack also aimed at the U? S? Because you. S. It is also playing a huge part in stabilizing the situation in the region.
Is the disinformation campaign also directed against the U.S.? S? And is Iran also a player in spreading false news? Thank you. Merci.
Redner 2
Thank you for those questions. I'll give the floor back to our experts. Let's start with Miss Meitland.
Redner 3
Hi. Yeah. Thank you for those questions. So, in terms of claims around the Armenian church, is there anything specific to the Armenian campaign? So, I think just to compare this campaign against Armenia by Storm 15-16 with a similar campaign that it conducted against Moldova last year, this particular influence campaign has quite a clear playbook, and their narratives in both cases were very similar.
So a lot of the narratives accused the governments of corruption, of misusing public funds, and of the different topics that I described. And in both cases, there were claims around religion and moral issues, kind of accusing those governments of sacrificing the so-called traditional values of those countries in favor of EU integration, for example. I wouldn't say that, in terms of the Storm 1516 campaign, there's a particular focus on the church compared to the Moldova campaign. There are definitely some narratives around the issue of religion and also around moral issues. So, for example, one video by the campaign purported to show Nicole Passionan participating in a satanic ritual, but it was a staged video.
And then there was another recent narrative which claimed that Passionan had canceled the construction of a very large statue of Jesus, which is being built in Armenia at the moment. So these narratives do appear to be designed to target religious Armenians and people concerned about moral issues and the implications of turning towards the West. In terms of the engagement of civil society around this election and these issues, I think something I've noticed while working on these false claims about Armenia is how engaged the Armenian government and Armenian media often are. So I find that, in my fact-checking, often governments don't want to engage with false claims, perhaps because they're afraid that if they engage with them, they will spread further. But the Armenian government is very responsive and reactive, and there have been responses by the Armenian Ministry of Health and the Armenian Ministry of Justice to false claims recently.
And in turn, Armenian media appears to be quite responsive in fact-checking articles and in putting out those government responses to false claims. So, I think that does appear to be quite an engaged civil society. It appears to me that the society is quite aware of these hybrid threats and is making an effort to engage with them. In terms of whether Armenia is sorry. As far as we have seen, I don't think we've detected any particular propaganda or false narrative campaign from Iran against Armenia.
And I think at this point, it's probably right to say that Russia is the main player in this space, although other researchers may have found differently. And finally, is there a disinformation campaign also directed against the US and its role as a mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan? As far as we've seen and the data I showed earlier in my presentation, storm 15-16 in particular targeted the US around the time of its election, but we've not really seen narratives by storm 15-16 targeting the US since Trump came to power. So I think that it appears from the data that there's no interest in that particular influence campaign in targeting the US at this point, and the narratives are more aimed at Armenia itself. Thank you.
Redner 5
Merci, madame la présidente. I will take the questions in the order of their intervention, starting with yours. Indeed, we could draw some lessons from the successful support to the Moldovan democratic process last year. And there are many points I could underline, but I would like to stress first that we started very early. We didn't wait 2 months before the election.
We started almost a year before the election date, and we are keeping this for the Armenian process. Second, it was absolutely essential for us to coordinate all activities of the EU bodies, institutions, and services so that they have an impact. And they do not interfere with each other, and they are streamlined and impactful. And that is also a key that HRVP Callas and the Commissioner, of course, are very adamant to keep. They have a meeting today, in particular on this.
Third element: respecting the will, the responsibility, and the sovereignty of the national authorities. We come as support. We cannot be seen as influencing their choice or the organization of the election. Third point. And fourth, my colleague was just confirming that it's true if we have put a bit more resources for Armenia than on Moldova, knowing that on trainings, on capacity building, it's absolutely essential to do whatever we can to support them.
So these are the key successes of our support. We will see, of course, the different or specific elements that exist with Armenia, the organization of the European Political Community in May. These major events of Europe coming to Yaivan may also have an impact. On the use of religion. Well, you're absolutely right. There is, of course, more than an attempt: manipulation of the specific role of the Orthodox religion in Armenian society to divide the society, make it weaker, and provoke a distortive reaction.
This is the Russian model imported to Armenia, but amplified to split the different components of the society. And we see that on many platforms. We see that also in events, and it's very clear that it's a major trend of their activities. What we do beyond FIMI is, absolutely, coordinate our support towards the electoral commission, but also address the hybrid threats that exist. And to give you another example, Russia is now trying to mobilize the Russians who used to live in Armenia so that they can vote and change the course of the election.
So on that also, we try discreetly to help. Iran is not in the mandate of FIMI, the mandate given by the member states. It's now clearly focused on Russia and China. We may have to discuss it. S.
And Iran soon, but it's not part of the mandate, so we are not observing this phenomenon. Although be, of course, aware that there are some rules. But we don't have data or assessment on this. I stop here.
Redner 2
Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much. We're going to break now for 5 minutes, more or less, and then go to an in-camera meeting for the rest of the morning with the Armenian ambassador who has just arrived. So we're going to break for a couple of minutes. Anybody who is not authorized to be in the room in camera is kindly invited to leave.
Thank you.
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