Pro-Kremlin actors target Armenia with multilingual biolab disinformation
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Russian state-linked actors coordinated a multilingual disinformation campaign falsely claiming US military biolabs in Armenia, amplified across 56 fringe websites and Telegram.
Pro-Kremlin actors mounted a coordinated disinformation campaign targeting Armenia with fabricated narratives about US-operated biolabs conducting secret military experiments on civilians. The campaign originated from the Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice (R-FBI), a disinformation front established with assistance from late Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, and was rapidly disseminated across at least seven languages via a network of 56 fringe websites, social media platforms, and Telegram channels. Key claims alleged that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan approved inhumane pharmaceutical experiments for financial gain and European favor, implicating Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan and Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan. A follow-up narrative claimed US military bioprograms shifted operations to scientific conferences as cover after initial exposure.
The disinformation infrastructure leveraged londontimes.live, an information laundry for Russian state media outlet RT, alongside Australiannationalreview.com, cnbsnews.live, and other lookalike news outlets. Technical analysis revealed these sites shared infrastructure hosted on b37mrtl.ru, an RT media asset server registered to TV-Novosti (RT's parent organization). The campaign employed Storm-1516, an offshoot of the Internet Research Agency, and coordinated Telegram amplification across Armenian and Russian language channels, with suspicious synchronized publishing patterns suggesting automated coordination. The narrative was designed to undermine trust in Armenia's government, discredit Western cooperation ahead of 2025 elections, and exploit regional geopolitical tensions, with related claims appearing on Azerbaijani pro-government sites.
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Source reporting: https://dfrlab.org/2025/07/07/pro-kremlin-actors-push-multilingual-biolab-hoax-targeting-armenia
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